§am\\ mnvmitt §^m Cornell University Library PS 3249.W3G2 3 1924 022 226 470 Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022226470 THE GAYWORTHYS: A STORY OF THREADS AND THRUMS. BT THE AUTHOR OF «» Faith Gartnejr's Girlhood. » 'PUteJ F1BST EDITION. LOEING, Publisher, 310 Washington Street, BOSTON. 1865. Entered according to Act of Congrats, in the year 1865, by A. K. LOEING, , In the Clerk's Ofllco of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. Stereotyped and Printed by J. E. Faewell and Company, 37 Congress Street, Boston. PREFATORY. Op threads and thrums : because a simple story of this mixed divine and human weaving we call Life; wherein are threads, — lines lying evenly along the loom, and made secure and perfect with a filling ; wherein are also many thrums, — ends broken, or dropped midway, or reaching out unfinished lengths beyond the web. Wherein the fabric seems, so often, faulty ; where much seems lost, left out, or wrongly joined ; where corre- spondence is delayed, and full-matched beauty missed; where colors are confused ; where the pattern, being vast, may .never quite unroll to earthly vision; where Patience keeps her foot upon the treadle, and Faith must stand, with fervent eyes, beside the springing shuttle, knowing of breadths that shall be woven by and by! CONTENTS. chapter Txaa I. Db. Gaywobtht's Women Folks • 7 II. Down among the Company 20 Iir. Peekin' and Hakkin' 29 IV. Stacy Law-ton's walk Home 43 V. The Secret at the Habtshobnes 47 VI. The daisy farm 56 VII. Watching and Waiting 73 VIII. Eben's Couf-d'Btat 80 IX. "Gabriel!" 86 X. Another Week 93 XI. Mbs. Gaib wbites Home 98 XII. The Feabl 106 XIII. FbovBbbs 118 XIV. The Expectant System 123 XV. A Search ; and Odyllic Fobce 133 XVI. Into Poet 139 XVII. Coming! 154 XVIII. Biddy Flynn and Heb Neighbors 163 XIX. The Silent Sin 171 XX. Guilty, ob Not Guilty? 18* XXI. the Eough ofp 198 XXII. Mixed News fbom Home 203 xxill. Music between the Acts 212 xxrv. Then and Now • ,...,**... 233 VI CONTENTS. XXV. Brown Bread 241 XXVI. Up boar-Back 247 XXVII. Over East Spur 262 XXVIII, Sunday 281 XXIX. Life's Word 289 XXX. Drifting Apart . 300 XXXI. A Birthday; and What it Brought ,305 XXXII. The Scarlet Oak 311 XXXIII. Views; Acrois and Back 319 XXXIV. Opposite Again ; at the Lesser Distance 328 XXXV. Eben's Discourse 335 XXXVI. Mrs- Gair makes up her Mind to be Equal to it ... . 341 XXXVII. To-Morrow . . 346 XXXVIII. Seeking 351 XXXIX, Finding 359 XL, Thrums Again 367 XLI. The Sunny Corner 377 XLII, "ElectedI" 386 XLIII. Last; But not Final 394 THE GAYWORTHYS, CHAPTER I. DOCTOR GAYWOETHT'S WOMEN FOLKS. Did you ever eat strawberry short-cake? If not, I am afraid I cannot put you in the way of that delight, further than to tell you that it is a delicious mystery of cuisine, known among certain dwellers in certain hill counties of New England, where the glo- rious scarlet berry blushes indigenous and profuse all over pasture slopes and mountain-sides at the early outburst of the short and fervid summer. A mystery, the manner of whose compounding is a grand, masonic secret among the skilful and initiated few ; for it is not every farmer's wife or daughter, you must know, who has passed that high degree which entitles her to call her neigh- bors together for such annual regale and marvel. I can tell you this only ; that on the June day wherefrom I date this story, in the great, snowy-clean, pewter-shining kitchen of the Gayworthys, solemn preparations were toward ; that on the broad dresser stood a huge pan, heaped high with the glowing fruit, wherefrom the whole house was redolent of rich, wild fra- grance ; that beside it, on either hand, waited, in plentiful sup- ply, flour of the whitest, and cream of the yellowest ; and that, somehow, by a deft putting of this and that together, the mighty result was to come. Huldah Brown stood, bare-armed and waiting, before the whole ; and looked calculatingly upon the gathered material. " It 's an awful lot, to be sure ; but then they '11 cvejyf soul of 'em come, from all pints of the compass ; and when they 're scalt and mashed, they do s'rink down ! " Huldah' s utterance must stand, in all its horrible ambiguity, as to who or what was to be " scalt and mashed." I may not venture to throw light on one point, lest I trespass, with unwar- ranted illumination, upon another. 8 THE GATWOBTHTS. " And there 's a manifest providence, comin' across the chip- yard ! " The " manifest providence " was a sharp-hosed, little, elderly woman, in a striped sun-bonnet, with a three-quart tin pail full of strawberries, which she changed from one hand to the other, wea- rily, as she came up to the open door. " Miss "Vorse ! " cried Huldah, from the stair-foot : "Ib'lieve my soul, we haint got berries enough, arter all ! " " You don't think it, Huldah ! " came back, in a sharp explo- sive consternation. " HiSI ' * ^° t ^ en ' " returne d Huldah, " and here 's Widder Horklp&st comin' along with a pailful. I call that clear luck ! " " See what she asks for 'em. 1 11 be down in a minute." Huldah Brown knew very well at which end to present a sugges- tion. The way to bring people to your own conclusion is to give them, not your last thought, but your first. Huldah startled her mistress with the selfsame doubt that had startled herself, and then brought forward the " manifest provi- dence." Up stairs, in the white bedroom, were gathered the four ladies of the house; or, in country parlance, "all Dr. Gay worthy's women- folks." Mrs. Reuben Gair, Mrs. Prudence Vorse, and the two young, unmarried sisters, Joanna and Rebecca. I mention first Mrs. Eeuben Gair. Because, though she cannot claim the precedence of seniority, she holds the stronger right of paramount importance among the sisters ; and is at this moment the centre and oracle of their group, as they stand, leaning eager faces in between the white festoons of dimity, about the great, old-fashioned, high-posted bedstead, whereon lie unfolded and dis- played certain purchases, which the city lady has from time to time been commissioned by letter and pattern to make, and upon whose fashion and quality she enlarges with all the eloquence of a perfect au-f ait-ism. Mrs. Eeuben Gair came up from Selport two days since, for her yearly summer visit in Hilbury. And so, the Hilbury season has begun, and the Gayworthys are giving their first summer party, and strawberry short-cake is the chief nominal attraction ; while " from all pints of the compass they'll be Sure to come," although there were no short-cake at all ; since Mrs. Reuben will be to be seen, in her new bright green silk, of the freshest Selport style ; and every soul (feminine) will be enabled to go home, having taken mental measurement and specification thereof, and knowing precisely the number of breadths in the skirt, and the width of the seven little ''crossway " ruffles that garnish it. DOCTOR GAYWOKTHY'S WOMEN FOLKS. 9 The Gay worthy sisters have made an early toilet, and the house is in early festival trim, and there has been ample time for the production and discussion of the long-expected fineries. Mrs. Vorse, or " sister Prue," is a woman of five and thirty, who looks to have taken life hard. She made " no great of a match " some fifteen years ago, and has come back within the four last past, to keep house for the old doctor, who is her step-father only, — her mother, his second wife, having been a widow with this one child, — while her young half-sisters have been away at school. . Her son, Gershom Vorse, then a boy of eight, came with her, and here they still abide, greatly to the comfort of the worthy doctor, whose household Prudence guides in the true spirit of her name, and to the welcome enfranchisement of Joanna and Eebecca ; not altogether, either, to the dissatisfaction of Mrs. Reuben, not- withstanding that the sisterhood between them is one of courtesy and association only ; Mrs. Gair, although the younger, being the child of the first Mrs. Gayworthy ; and thus, as she could not help remembering, at times, with a certain touch of jealous restless- ness as connected with the present, and an as certain, but half- examined complacency as regarded the contingencies of the future, " really no relation at all." " A double family of girls was quite enough in all conscience ; and then, there was Prue's great boy ! " Very clumsy and ill- judged, to be sure, this latter circumstance, on the part of Prue. The world, as I have intimated, had been hard work for Pru- dence Vorse. Things had not fallen in comfortably or fortunately for her, as they do for some. She had had ten years of trying at life which was not life. If she wanted anything, every nerve was to be strained to get it. The people about her, instead of being helps to her wishes, were so many obstacles for her to overcome. She had always been heading straight against a stone wall ; the more, because it had never been in her nature to take any circuit- ous way. Her face had got a hard directness and determination in it, so. Her voice had laid aside its softer modulations, and taken a short, strong, uncompromising tone. Her look, her move- ment, her whole bearing, had a searchingness, a promptness, a decision, almost aggressive, in them. Many a woman hardens or sharpens, through the opposing or grinding of unkindly circumstances, who else might have been gen- tle, restful, round with graee in soul and lineament, through nest- ling lovingly among loving influences. Ah, well ! God sees ! Mrs. Gair, on the contrary, has been one of those for whom all. things smile; who have the world on their own terms ; who have always pleasant weather for their pleasant plans, and timely tern- 10 THE GAYTVOKTHYS. pest to make impossible that which they may not care to do. This, at least, was the look her life wore to others ; she herself knew her own unsatisfactions, as we all do ; whether hers were noble or ig- noble discontents may be shown as we shall turn the coming pages. There are only five years between her and her step-sister, as they stand there together ; the one in her glistening, summer-bright robe, fresh and new as the new leaves of June ; with round, fair face un- lined by any perplexity, and hair untouched of autumn, dressed fearlessly in the simple style of the time ; the other in her well- :' kept dress of not too costly black, having that air of unusedness'^ which a black silk dress, produced only upon state occasions, may keep through whatever vicissitudes of passing fashion and fading gloss, — new always in its owner's idea however shabby it may come to be to eyes of others ; cappy head-dress, that, although it is to the regularly instituted cap what spring eye-glasses are to spec- tacles, yet is, like them, the beginning of an acknowledgment ; and the face that tells its ten years stoiy as I have hinted ; — who could have believed in but that five years' difference? Joanna and Eebecca are young ; wearing the look that only early girlhood wears, — unwritten of any past, — expectant of all future possibilities. What need to describe them ? Round, laughing, and fair, — the one,; slight, brown, delicate, serious-eyed, — the other ; that is all. The years of their lives — perhaps the pages of this story — shall develop or contradict whatever prophecy you may read in two such faces. Meanwhile, this sketch of the four is but a daguerreotype, flash- ed in 'an instant; the instant wherein Widow Horke still pauses upon the door-stone, and busy Huldah Brown, who, you may be certain, will not wait there long, yet lingers at the stair-foot. And sister Prue smooths her new cap that has been brushed a lit- tle awry by the cotton fringes of the bed-hangings, and hastens down stairs with a great white apron tied on over the best black silk, and sleeves turned up, to superintend the strawberry short-cake ; and Mrs. Eeuben Gair, craving help of her two young sisters, lays shawls and muslins and ribbons and patterns carefully back into the great travelling trunk ; which being locked, she plunges into the far recesses of the dark, narrow closet that runs back between the chambers their full length, lest half Hilbury may get accidental glimpse or confidentially crave full sight of these new summer things that have come from Selport "You're tired, I guess? \ says JHuldah Brown to the widow, as Mrs. Vorse comes down the stairs. "Tired!" answers Widow Horke, .emphatically. "I'm all gone ! I don't know where." DOOTOE QATWOBTHT'S WOMEN FOLKS. 11 " Walk in and sit down," says the quick, smart voice of Pru- dence Vorse, " while Huldah measures the berries. Three quarts ? I don't want more 'n two. They 'd be clear wasted. I guess Mrs. Hartshorne '11 take the other. Ten cents ! I have n't paid but six this week past." So speaking, Mrs. Vorse led the way, pail in hand, across the kitchen toward the dresser, by the end of which, with a volumi- nous sigh, Widow Horke sunk into a seat. " They 're wuth that, to me," pleaded the latter, with a low whine, the diminuendo of her sigh. Mrs. Vorse turned short round, and pushed the pail toward her across the corner of the board. " Very well, then," was the prompt decision, " the best thing you can do is just to take 'em right home and eat 'em. They won't be so valuable to anybody else, at that rate." Mrs. Horke laughed faintly, as literally at her own expense. " You 're allers jest so queer," she said. " Well, seein' its you, I 'spose I must let you have 'em." " Just as you like. Six cents is a fair price." And Mrs. Vorse went over into the pantry, where she kept odd change in a blue mug, and brought back, presently, the twelve cents, and something beside, wrapped in a brown paper. " That '11 help out your supper," said she,-never minding that the plum cake was worth five times the difference in the disputed price of the strawberries. Mrs. Vorse was not stingy. But she had certain rules which she never let herself off from. She might give away, but she never would pay an exorbitant price. She had an uncompromising sense of justice which carried itself out into the least details. " Sarah G-air !" she cried sharply, as a child of seven, sashed, pantaletted, and bronze-booted, running in before Mrs. Eeuben, and across to the tempting dresser, straightway " thrust in a thumb and pulled out a plum," from Widow Horke's tin pail, — " if you want strawberries, take 'em out of the pudding dish ! TJiey 're paid for, and those aint ! " and she deliberately put a berry from said pudding-dish back into the pail. "Lord'a massy ! ejaculated the widow, laughing genuinely this time, with a double tickle of Mrs. Prue's oddity and the aroma of plum cake, "if anybody ever heerd the like ! You do hev the singl'rest notions, Miss Vorse." " So it seems to me," remarked Mrs. Eeuben Gair, as the straw- berry picker took up her pail and departed across the chip-yard. "And they don't appear always to be quite consistent ; did n't I hear you beating the poor woman down in her price a minute ago? " 12 THE GAYWORTHTS. " That 's just where the consistency is," retorted her step- sister. " Right's right, cither way. — She may be poor," continued Mrs Pru- dence, "and she may be a widow woman; and she may be rheumat- ic, winters ; and she may live all alone down there by Gibson's clearing ; but that aint any reason why she should put it all on to the price of a mess of strawberries. When- I give, I give ; and when I buy, I buy. — Sarah Gair!" she cried again, suddenly, to the small, starched, ribboned, and beruffled creature who by this time was peeping in furtively at the pantry door, within which, on the ample shelves, stood the whole bountiful variety and array of country delicacies that were to sustain the ancient honor of the Gayworthy table, " don't you make up your mind to sponge-cake from the beginning, this time, and eat five pieces, as you did at the Fairbrother's ! " The child drooped down from head to foot, from her glad, eager attitude, in a moment ; and a shame that only rebuked childhood knows, dreaming of nought more shameful than the present fault whereof it stands convicted, rushed over her, hot and scarlet. " Mrs. Fairbrother asked me," she murmured faintly, " and ma won't let me eat plum cake." "If Mrs. Fairbrother asked you five times, three times you should have said, 'No, I thank you.' " " But," persisted the culprit, more confidently now, feeling sud- denly to Kave the great Angel, Truth, upon her side, " she asked me if I wanted some more ; and I did ! " Aunt Prue was silent. " You should have said ' No, I thank you,' all the same," ad- monished the mother. " It was n't polite." " Polite ! " cried aunt Prue, aside. " Better tell her not to be greedy." " And what do you suppose all those people think of you now ? " Mrs. Gair flung this last shaft, — a great battle-axe of world's- opinion against a mere gnat of transgression — and then the two grown women forgot the whole matter in five minutes, and the child crept out, and sat upon the door-stone, and felt her small pride crushed, and her character stained forever. The strawberry party, at least it seemed so at this moment, was all spoiled now. So, in our clumsy recklessness, we deal with souls ! Only, the dock always grows beside the nettle. It is God who takes care of that. Aunt Rebecca, in her white dress, with her pure, gentle young face, came out to the door-stone and stood behind Sarah. The pleasant south wind was blowing through the great maples ' that stood in a row between the road and the chip-yard ; the scent DOCTOR GAY WORTHY'S WOMEN FOLKS. 13 of early roses came up from the low flower-garden, to which a white gate, and a few rough stone steps led in and down straight opposite the door. Further on, beside the drive that wound with sudden slope around the garden to the right, toward the great barns, stood the long trough, hewn from a tree-trunk, and holding clear, cool water that flowed incessantly into it, through a wooden duct of halved and hollowed saplings, leading from a spring in the hillside away up behind the house. Here a yoke of tired cattle were drinking, — the ploughboy standing patiently beside ; close by the great creatures' heads, upon the trough-rim, perched fear- less chickens, dipping their yellow bills; and underneath and around, in the merry, unfailing puddles, splashed and quackled the ducks. The bright June sun, genial, not scorching, hung in the afternoon sky. There were birds in the maple trees, and the very grass about the door-stone was full of happy life. Out upon all, through troubled eyes, looked a little, tender human soul that had felt a pain. "What is it, Say?" Say turned round at the gentle voice, and nestled her face against the folds of the white dress. "I ate all sponge-cake for my supper at Mrs. Fairbrother's," she murmured, like a penitent at confessional, whispering into priestly ears the avowal of a deadly sin. " And that was ? " said Aunt Eebecca. " Greedy. Horrid." So far she spoke from sentence of others, but of her shame ; and then something in herself rebelled at her own words, and she added, with sudden defiance — "But I don't see why. There was plenty of it. And they asked me." " Plenty for you, dear. But if everybody else had wanted all sponge-cake ? " Sarah saw the selfishness then, and there was no answer for her to make. She dropped, wretchedly, back into her self-con- tempt again. " I wish," said the child, impulsively, " that I was a chicken. Only a little, yellow, peeping chicken. Like those down there,." " Like that one, running away to hide under the fence, with a barleycorn in his mouth ? " " Oh dear! " This soul that had been born into the world, and ,had had its tiny experience of the evil, might chafe in vain. She could see nowhere her escape, not even into chickenhood, had that been possible. " Not that way," said Eebecca, more to her own thought than remembering the child. " Only toward God." " We must ask, Say, to have the selfishness taken from us. 14 THE GAYWORTHYS. And we must try to give up. We can't turn into chickens, even if that would do. But we can grow — to be angels. This one little fault may make you better all your life. And," she added, with a delicate heart-instinct, " nobody will ever remember it ! " -Say's face changed. She had passed through, in these few moments — sensitive children do, in a strange undreamed-of way, in these theirdittle experiences — an epitome of the grand, spirit- ual experience of human life, and of the world. All things great are in all things little. Law comes with its rebuke, — its fruitless shame for what is past ; Gospel with its word of mercy for what has been, its hope for better things to be. Aunt Prue was condemnation. Aunt Kebecca was redemption. The child loved the saintly young girl, at that moment, as men love their Redeemer. She might overlive it, then ; even this terrible misdemeanor of the sponge-cake. " Nobody would remember it." The words were a balm like that which comes to us grown sinners with God's words — "I have blotted out thy transgressions; I will not remember thy sins." Say slid her little hand into Aunt Eebecca's. "Let me stay by you at tea-time," she whispered, " Why, Auntie ! " she cried, sud- denly, with altered tone, as for the first time she lifted her eyes fully to the kind face that looked down upon her. " Tou had your hair in those pretty puffs. Where are they ? " "I brushed them back again," said Aunt Rebecca, quietly. This young girl of nineteen had renounced her vanity so. She had seen in her glass that her face was very pretty, set in its glossy frame of smoothly banded locks; and, lest she should remember it to her spiritual hurt, — lest she should so, thinking of self, forget her Lord, — she had put them back, and chosen to wear only her usual and unnoted look to-day. Moreover, the Reverend Gordon King was to be of the straw- berry party. I do not say that puffs are sinful. I do not say that God forbids a simple joy in the beauty that He gives. I only tell you what this young creature, true to her own conception of duty, did. Rebecca Gayworthy was growing into the character that primi- tive New England influences, and almost these alone, develop from certain natures. Out of these by-places where' the Puritan air still lingers — out of these Bethlehems, slow of growth, perhaps, but. the less tainted, come souls that rule. ' That walk sternly over self, — that choose the thorns, — that take up their cross daily, giving up their own work to do that of the Lord Christ Taught from infancy that no Church or. outside ark is to Save DOCTOR GAYWORTIIY s S WOMEN FOLKS. 15 them ; that no cabalism of words said over them is to bring them necessarily into the kingdom of heaven; admonished of the spirit- ual birth, — warned of the spiritual death ; set searching, each soul for itself, what this birth may mean, — how salvation from this death be won ; the thoughtful, earnest spirit wrestles and reaches till it lays hold of sainthood. A fugue of voices from within called Eebecca at this moment. Flour and cream and fruit had been carried away. The hour had come for laying the long table in the great front kitchen, the only room in the farm-house which .might afford space for the expected guests at a real comfortable, sit-down, tea-drinking, whereat alone might strawberry short-cake be fittingly enjoyed. At other times, the Gayworthy ladies knew well how to order and preside over the stateliness of the formal " handing-round" in the best parlor. To-night was high festival, where mere gentility took second place. The wide fireplace was garnished with greenery, and the flames that ordinarily poured upward through its capacious outlet were kindling unwontedly in the out-room, 'where Huldah Brown was already mixing and rolling, and would shortly be " scalding and mashing," — high priestess of the mighty mystery that she was. The dresser held now the wide tray laden with rare old. china cups and saucers and plates; tea-pots of the same, tall, slender, quaint, long-spouted, high-handled; little pitchers with the "long ears," that shall forever be memorialized while little human recep- tacles with the like appendages continue to be ; all these, .and many of them ; for in the days and regions of notable personal housewifery, and neat-handed Huldahs helping, grandmother's treasures of porcelain gathered and came down, with neither nick nor breakage, to second and third generations. Alas, for the days that have been, and shall be no more forever ! The monstrous linen-chest, that stood in the great "kitchen chamber" overhead, had delivered up its most voluminous nape- ries to shroud the extended board whose construction for the occasion, since no guests shall have need to spy, we, neither, need pry into nor explain. There was a sweet, nameless, delicate fragrance in the air, as the pure white folds were shaken out, such as is breathed only from old presses, and quaint bureaus, and great chests like this that had held these, wherein women of the olden time, who set store by their fair linens and delicate laces, and silken heirlooms of taffeta and brocade, kept daintily, with bits of musk, and sprigs of lavender, such wealth of house and wardrobe. Eebecca was summoned to assist in the spreading and placing. An hour hence, and the early country party would have assembled. 16 THE G AY WORTH YS. Sarah Gair stayed outside, waiting to see what Gershom Vorse, coming up toward her from the orchard gate, with one of the farm men, might be going to do. " Eben is going to feed the pigs now, Say ! Come out into the shed-chamber, and we'll call 'em in ! " Say sprang down from the door-stone at that, eagerly ; and skip- ped, in a dainty way, turning out the toes of her new bronze boots, over the bit of grass-plot that lay between her and the wide open doors of the great woodshed. Gershom came up, with a certain contempt in the tread of his stout country shoes. "I forgot you were all dressed up, and toes in position," said he. Say had before this offered to teach him the small beginnings' that she herself had made in the sublime art which includes ." Deportment." "That is n'tii bit of matter," returned the straightforward lit- tle lady, not accepting the sarcasm, and picking her way among the scattered chips and litter along the shed, with a continued, conscious pleasure, — the pleasure of using pretty things, — in each separate planting of the trim, golden-gleaming little feet. " It' s as nice out in my play-parlor, as it is in Aunt Prue's best room. Besides, my dollies want to see me, by this time." The shed-chamber was a»clean, floored room, rough-beamed and small-windowed, at the further end of the building. One win- dow opened on the yard, toward the house, and the other overlook- ed the pig-pen, and pleasanter things beyond. Through the middle of the floor came up two square, box-like constructions— -open conduits to the troughs beneath. And this " play-parlor," as Say called it, was a really pleasant place. To a child, a bit of Paradise, roughly boarded in. Here, in any weather, Say could come, and amuse herself with her grand china-closet of broken bits, — luckily for the children, common ware did get fractured now and then, — ranged along the ledges in one corner ; decorate the brown, unplaned walls with boughs of green and wild flowers or gay, coarse garden-blossoms that she had " leave to pick ;" admonish and discipline, dress and array, her indefinite family of corn-cob children, and,, above all, when everything else sated, stand at the " pig-pen " window, and look out over the green meadow stretching towards the bit of oak woods that skirted the opposite boundary of the wet land with its green mystery, which nobody but the pigs ever penetrated, and whither these happy animals daily betook themselves through a little wicket-gate left open from their board and lodging place. DOCTOR GAYWORTHY'S WOMEN FOLKS. 17 The call from this -window, in a high, peculiar monotone, " pig- pig-pig- pig-pig, - " would bring, first one, then another, and at last the Whole drove, peeping out from the oak-grove, and scampering across the meadow to their roomy, and not unclean quarters with- in the wicket ; where, at suitable intervals, buckets-full, not of common refuse, but of what to swinish appreciation, must have seemed the most sumptuous white soup, — a boiling of vegetables added to the surplus of the dairy, — rich buttermilk, or sweet whey, or plentiful skimmed milk, better than humans in the cities pay for, — was poured, a luscious flood, down the square conduits above mentioned. I think pigs were never so happy, so well lodged, so bountifully and delicately fed, as these of Grandpapa Gayworthy ! What with the liberty abroad, and the dainties at home, it was the very poetry of pork. At any rate, Sarah Gair was hardly ever more happy than in luring them out from their green, shady covert where the sweet, acorns grew, and watching their eagerness as they scrambled along the meadow-path, and into their dining-parlor, and tumbled up confusedly about the troughs ; lifting their small, keen eyes, like many a creature of higher organization, with a very assured expectancy of good gifts due, according to precedent, from above. " Eben — ezer ! " cried Say, from the window, as the man en- tered the chamber behind them, and set his pail beside the great wooden spouts. " The gate's blown to! The pigs can't get in ! Make haste, — there's grandpa driving down the yard ! " " An' I guess he'll want his horse took out, afore I come back again. So you an' the pigs can wait. It '11 be sometime, too, I should n't wonder. You can't expect a man that carries a mame as long as that, to stir round quite so spry as a Jack-be-nim- ble ! " Eben had so his sly revenge for Say's mischievous giving of the whole title, which, it was well known in the household, he very decidedly disliked. He left the pails as they were, "beside the spouts, and went down to' the yard below. As he set the wicket back, Dr. Gayworthy really did call to him. Meanwhile the children at the window called the pigs. " How funny they look," said Say, " with their great ears flap- ping, and their queer, flat noses going, so ! " and she turned her lips, very drolly, inside out and up and down against nose and chin, and tried to Work them, pig-Fashion. " There they come, tumbling and grunting," as the creatures crossed their outer court and disappeared beneath the building. "And, now, I wish Eb would come." 2» 18 THE GATWOETHTS. To pass away the time, Say skipped down from the block of timber upon which she stood at the window, and executing certain imperfectly learned "dancing steps," fell to admiring her new boots again, — chatting on, all the while, to Gershom. " Did you know we 're going to have a little table, you and I, and take tea at the same time with the company ? " " I hate company," answered Gershom, gruffly. " People stuck round, mincing at little bits, and saying, ' No, I thank you,' with their mouths puckered up, when they want it, all the time ! I hate company, and I hate company manners! — 'Ma-1-vi-ny! ' " he drawled, in a high, plaintive pitch of voice, " 'take — your fingers — out — of the su-gar bowl! Do-n't — touch — the pie — until — it 's cut !' That's Mrs. Fairbrother. And then she gives her a lump of sugar, and a big piece of, cake to eat in a corner, so as to make her behave. P— ff ! " " But then," put in little Say, quite seriously, " people must behave, you know. "We should n't like to act like the pigs down there," as a fierce, impatient scramble and squealing was heard from about the empty troughs. " I don't know," returned Gershom, a little less gruffly, but with a tone of cavil, still. " It 's wrong, somehow. It aint real. If they 'd like to be like the pigs, they'd better do it." "I'm sure /shouldn't like to be like the pigs," said Say, prac- tising a waltz step pretty successfully. " I like to be nice ! " " yes," returned Gershom, with a small sneer. " You like to wear new brown boots, and be fine, I daresay. But that aint it." " Gershom ! Tou 're cross ! " "Ho, I aint. But you 're proud. You 're thinking all the time of your boots. You 're thinking there is n't another pair in all Hilbury like 'cm. What if there is n't ? That don't make you any better than the rest. You 've got nothing but bare feet, like everybody's else, inside 'em, after all ! " " Gershom ! You 're real ugly. I don't care for my boots ! " " Poh ! That's likely! Don't you pick round, like a cat, for fear you should wet 'em or scratch 'em ? " And Gershom turned away, in utter disdain. " I 'd just as lief spoil 'em as not ! See here*! " Gershom turned his head, again, at the passionate tone and a sudden splash ; and Eben re-entered the shed-chamber at the same moment. The two saw something astonishing. A small figure, dilated with an angry, desperate triumph, holding itself haughtily, erect, motionless, in a pig's-pail ! Gershom's scorn was the one thing Say could not bear. Wo- DOCTOR GAYWORTHY'S WOMEN FOLKS. 19 man-like, she vindicated herself impetuously and recklessly, from one suspicion, 'by rushing, absurdly, into an opposite excess. She had her reward, as women have. " I don't see how that mends the matter," was the cool, slight- ing comment of the boy. "You can't say any more about my boots, anyhow!" And standing there still in her ridiculous attitude, from which even the dignity of a righteous resentment now fell away, she burst into a passion of impotent tears. Eben lifted her, quietly, by the shoulders, and set her, dripping, upon the floor. " Well, I vum ! " said he, " that 's spun- ky. If ever I see the like o' that afore, my name aint Eben ezer ! " Say stood sobbing, conscious of ignominious failure ; remem- bering, with a rush, all that lay before her now, — the getting in- to the house again, — her mother's and aunt's displeasure, — all that was utterly impossible and horrible to do and to bear. She stood there in a shame, and fear, and agony ; and in a great pause, that seemed like the end of all things. The next that life had for her might come ; she could not move to meet it. Then Gershom changed his mood. Conceit and vanity and" self-satisfaction, — the shams of society patent to his early ex- perience, — these he could battle with and put down. These, boy as he was, he had no mercy for. But humiliation and helplessness and tears, — these, the man-chivalry aroused in him to pity and to help. He came and drew Say gently by the arm. Come," said he ; " never mind ! Sit down here on the block." Say let herself, be put there, passively. Gershom unfastened and drew off the soaked boots and stock- ings, and then brought a dipper full of water from the well, which he poured over the white .little feet and ankles, and the. unhappy pantalets. • "Now," said he, "don't cry; but come up the back stairs with me. There 's nobody but Huldah in the out-room. And you and I '11 have our supper in the kitchen-chamber." There was nobody like Gershom for tormenting or consoling. This childish scene betrayed something, on each side, of charac- ter, and foreshadowed much of what was yet to be. CHAPTER H. DOWN AMONG THE COMPANY. "From all points of the compass " they began to arrive. Not that this implies necessarily any mighty concourse ; there was no other way for a gathering- to be made in Hilbury. It was one of those great, thinly populated townships that lie about among the hills in certain New England regions, which have a small settle- ment — sometimes that only of a single family, with its branches — in each corner, and a meeting-house in the middle. There were, in Hilbury, the separate villages of the Centre,' the Bridge, Law- ton's and Gibson's Corners, and Gair's Hill. . So, from all these they came, — from up the road and down the road, — and, driv- ing across the chip-yard, tied their horses to the garden fence. Dr. Gay worthy's house stood, if mathematics admit of such an expression, in the edge of the Centre. It was a fair, prosperous- looking building, kept fresh with seasonable paintings, of a mellow, sunny, smiling straw-color ; the color in the country, most indicative of Well-to-do-ing. It had an air somehow, among the neighboring dwellings of dusky red, as of a dainty lady in primrose silk among rustics wearing common scarlet cotton print. The children — Gershom and Say — watched the arrival of the company from the " clothes-room "• window, — the clothes- room being a large, light closet, off the southwest end of the great kitchen-chamber. Say's spirits were reacting merrily from her terror and dis- grace. Mrs. Beuben, intent at the moment upon the placing of the iced plum-cakes, had but half comprehended the catastrophe which Gershom tried to convey to her knowledge, taking to him- self as large a share of the blame as might be. " I '11 warrant it ! " was her exclamation. " If there 's a mis- chief to be got into, she '11 be sure to find it ! " " She 's very sorry about it, Aunt Jane. You won't scold her, will you?" Something in this appeal, whatever it may have been, of word DOWN AMONG THE COMPANY. 21 or manner, seemed to give " Aunt Jane " more annoyance than all the previous recital. She motioned — I might say, if it were elegant, elbowed — him off, with the arm against which, in his eagerness to follow her along the table, he pressed a little, to the damage of the new French embroidered cape, with its innumer- able delicate lace finishings and frills, the like of which had never before been seen in Hilbury. The gesture was more pettish than it was like her usual self to be ; for Mrs. Eeuben Gail' rarely .allowed herself to be " put about," as the common saying is; she had a way of smoothly steering along toward her ends, whether great or small ; without ever jostling against anything or anybody. " There, go away," she returned, hastily. " I 've no time, now, for scolding, or anything else. If you 've got her into a mess, you '11 have to take care of her and keep her out of the way." Gershom skipped up the out- room stairs, well pleased at gaining even this much. "The worst's over, Say," he said. "She knows. And she was n't so terrible angry, after all. She seemed more put out about my tumbling her new-fashioned Vandyke, or whatever you call it, than anything else." So Say was in spirits again ; and sat, like a barefooted princess, upon the divan of blankets and " comfortables " that lay piled below the clothes-room window, and watched the gay arrivals ; and Gershom, by and by, when the strawberry feasting began below, ran up and down the out-room staircase, receiving from friendly Hul- dah Brown nice bits of what he and Say liked best ; and Say thought nothing in the world worth wishing for any longer, since Gershie was so good-natured. " I told you I did n't care about my boots," she cried. "I'd rather be here than down among the company, a great deal !" Down among the company, however it might be as to bodily wants, there was perhaps many a heart-hunger less abundantly ministered to than little Sarah Gair's. Stacy Lawton felt no scruple about wearing her hair in the new puffs. She had thought of little else since Mrs. Keuben -Gair ap- peared in them at Mrs. Fairbrother's sewing-circle. She, as well as Kebecca Gayworthy, had heard the young minister, Gordon King, preach his two sermons last Sunday, the one upon "seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness ;" after which, Stacy, with a party of other young girls, had adjourned to spend the " noon-time" with a friend close by the meeting-house, in eating cold pie, cake, and cheese, and in low-toned discussion among themselves as to how it — not this seeking of the kingdom, but the hair-dressing was done ; the other, at afternoon service, 22 THE GAYWOBTHYS. upon the " mortifying of the flesh;" from which she went straightway home, and used heir leisure hours of twilight in patient experiments before her glass, until the hairs of her head, which the Scripture- reading of the day had admonished her she " could neither make white nor black," took shape and place as she desired. Rebecca Gayworthy shut herself in her chamber, also ; but she sat there in a still, solemn presence that pervaded her soul ; and in the fair garden thereof the Lord God walked in this cool of His day. So Stacy Lawton came to the strawberry party with her dark hair banded stylishly from off her face ; and the consciousness that she was looking very pretty, and that people were noticing it, gave a sparkle to her eyes, and a sprightly grace and ease to her move- ments that made her, as indeed she was very apt at all times to be, quite the belle of the occasion. Say what you will of violets, and unconscious charms, the perk little daisy gets the better of it in the eye of the world ; and there is nothing that helps beauty so to its full success as just the spice of consciousness that gives confidence. And Rebecca had put from her the like adornment, for con- science's sake. Foolishly, you say ? I am not sure. There is some- where this written — that " all things shall work together for good to them that love God." Even a mistaken or needless self-sacrifice, then. " There is none that hath forsaken anything for the king- dom of heaven's sake but shall receive manifold more." God's promise to pay holds good, I think. Nevertheless, it is very true that Gordon King, as he stood talk- ing for a few moments with "Rebecca upon his first entrance, thought silently that " somehow, she was n't quite so pretty, after all as he had fancied ; " and that Stacy Lawton's bright glance and musical laugh enticed him presently to that corner of the room where she held small, merry court ; where she made room for him at her side with a beaming look that seemed warm welcome only, but was secretly, also, kindled of a coquettish triumph. The Reverend Gordon King was very like other young men, it must be owned ; and although he preached from the Bible on a Sunday the truth he found there, he went out from his pulpit of a week-day into the little world about him, and valued the things thereof greatly after the world's own fashion. " Take no thought for raiment, what ye shall put on," he had read and exhorted; yet here he was, quite appreciative of the results of Miss Stacy's " taking thought " which had brought about all this blooming pret- tiness in puffed-hair and pink muslin. I do not mean that Gordon King was a hypocrite, — to be ranked DOWN AMONG THE COMPANY. 23 with the Scribes and Pharisees in the condemnation. I mean sim- ply, that he was no better than human ; and as yet, perhaps, not wholly sanctified human. There may be snuffling, canting " shep- herds," — Stigginses, Chadbands, and the like in the world. I have not known them. I only speak of people of whom I know such to have been. • Preaching ran in the King family ; as politics or doctoring, sailor- ing or soldiering, run in some others. The uncle of Gordon had been a divine, eminent in his neighborhood, degreed in due course, as Doctor Divinitatis, and now occupying a good college professor- ship. His elder brother was in Batavia, sent out by the A. B. 0. F. M. His father was an influential deacon in the church; his sister had married the Kev. Felix Fairbrother ; which brings him into the pulpit of Hilbury and into the scene of our story. He had gone through a college course ; he had studied in the Divinity School ; he had also, as needful preliminary to this, — not feignedly, but of good faith, — putting himself " in the way of grace," — gone through what passed with himself and those about him for the gen- uine order of religious experience ; he believed himself, and was believed, to have received the renewing gift — the intangible ordi- nance of the Spirit. How was he truly to .know if what he had gotten were the same wherein another soul rejoiced ? Life was to test for him and teach him this. God, who worked, doubtless, in these very cues of circumstance, calling him outwardly, might have laid up for him in his future,"a nobler, intenser expe- rience than any whereto he had yet reached in these five and twenty years that were past. Meanwhile, for this party at the Gayworthy's, he had dressed with thoughts not very different from those that any other bachelor of twenty-five might have had, in dressing for a ladies' party. There was an external difference. He folded about his neck the white cravat, at that time the still distinctive badge of his order. Two white cravats, successively, I should say ; for the first that he essayed proving to be but limply starched, and the great house- clock below reminding him at the same moment of the lateness of the hour, he had flung it down with a very unclerical gesture of — to say the least — impatience ; and an inarticulate ejaculation that, on ruder or uneonsecrated lips might have gone nigh to syllable itself profanely. I don't say that it wasn't a great deal better so than if be had actually said anything that would need to be spelt with a black ; and I don't Suppose he ever did use bad words. But I wonder if, after all, the angels up above listen so heedfully for the vibrations of these gases about our earth which feed and pulsate to our human "breath sfc for the tremblings of the unseen 24 • THE GAYWORTHYS. Spirit ; and whether the state of mind of the Reverend Gordon King for the moment was really so widely unlike that of the poor man whose hay-cart I saw topple over in the field the other day, and who did say something with a dash in the middle. And I am afraid that, as a general statement men are hut men, too often ; and that, lest they might be worse, it behooves somebody to look after them pretty carefully, even in the matter of white cravats. Howbeit, this was he whom Rebecca, in her innocent reverence, held as one sanctified of God above common men. For whom she would not use any harmless art of outer adornment ; but rather hallow herself, and hold herself pure of earthly vanity, if so, at least, she might keep her soul upon the plane of such as his ; if so, at least, she might be utterly worthy, whether it should please God that she might win his love, or no. Ah, there is a sainthood to whose companionship suoh life reaches, though that which it believes in seem to mock its faith ! • If Gordon King had held the answering talisman in his own soul, he should not, this night, have been lured away to the false princess, while the true, veiled in her meek-heartedness, waited so near his side. Eebecca, moving about among the guests with her Madonna hair and quiet look, grew even a shade more quiet, perhaps, but that was all. Joanna, bright and laughing, with a little positive emphatic way of her own of uttering droll or absurdly extravagant things, that made everybody else laugh with her, was somehow also a little more pronounced in her special characteristics, — a little more queer, and animated, and hyperbolical than usual. Nobody' guessed, — as she kept a knot of the Hilbury girls in chimes of merriment with a carefully detailed receipt for the fa- mous short-cake, in which she gravely asserted " soft soap, beaten to a cream" to be the chief ingredient, and described to their eager questionings the secret arrangement of " seventeen crash flounces " which she declared — ladies were not caged or coopered then — held Mrs. Reuben's skirts in such graceful rotundity, — the stealthy anxiety that glanced through all her fun, in the quick half-turn of her head at each movement near the door ; or the disappointment that was gradually settling down cold upon her heart, as time wore on, and somebody, whom she looked for, did not come ; and no one around her caught, as she did, a chance word of Mrs. Hartshorne's, who stood a dozen feet off, in answer to a question put by Mrs. Prue, that Joanna dared not, for her life, have put, herself. " Gabriel's gone over to Deepwater, sailing with the Purcells. He promised a week ago, to go, when they settled on a day ; and Aleck Purcell came over this morning to get him." DOWN AMONG THE COMPANY. 25 " Are the Frank Pureells staying there still ? " "0 yes — the young folks. Mr. and Mrs. went back last Tuesday." After that, Joanna laughed more merrily yet, and became yet more absurd. And her end of the room grew quite noisy with the " gale " the girls got into ; and plaintive Mrs Fairbrother, away over opposite, quite worn out with continual mild, ineffec- tual remonstrances with " Malviny," who, as the minister's child, was privileged to be taken everywhere, said to her husband, — "It's Joanna Gayworthy. She's always in such high spirits. She '11 get sobered down, one of these days, when she comes to sec care and trouble." Joanna G-ayworthy, at the same moment, was thinking, in her secret heart, how nice it would be, when all these people were gone, and the china set away, and the house shut up, and lights put out, and she in bed, having a good cry to herself, in the dark. Well, — this was a strawberry party. It makes no difference. That; or- anything else, as it might happen. It was life, which finds slight outside seeming and excuse, and veils so its great workings. You don't hold out to people, undisguisedly, the hun- dred different hopes and motives which you know will bring them together, when you invite them to your house. You ask them to eat strawberries, or to listen to music, or to dance the polka* The rest is incidental, — thrown in. So we come to live double. Nobody says anything about it, but every one is conscious of some- thing, be it what it may, that underlies the dressing and the dancing, and the feasting, and the words of the hour, which is the reality ; else there is none, in it all. Take this away, and the whole crumbles into nothing. The game is not worth the candle. The candle, henceforth, goes out. Doctor G-ayworthy knew all this ; but he had got past the time for thinking much about it. He could have remembered hours wherein all life had seemed to him centred ; hours that seemed an existence, questioning nothing of a beginning or an end ; a husk- ing, or a quilting, or a winter dance, the simple scene of which had widened out with a breadth of experience that made it as a theatre whereon the pivotal act of a human life was played, while all the eager stars looked down ; he could have remembered wheD, as his real life withdrew itself, and centred otherwise and else- where, such gatherings began to lose their charm, and he came to wonder how it was that there were no longer any such drives, or dances, or bees, or frolics, as had been when he was young. Now, even this was past ; he neither participated nor wondered ; but accepted or offered a hospitality that was part of a routine, and 3 26 THE GAYWOKTHYS. only looked to it, that, so far as depended upon him, everybody got their tea and cake, which was what they had ostensibly come for. So, to-night, the Doctor, worthy gentleman, looked up and down among his daughters' guests, and saw that all was plentiful and comfortable ; and he walked about the rooms after tea was - over, and noticed everybody, and chatted with a few ; and observed, indeed, that Kebecca was a little pale and still to-night, — tired, perhaps, with her preparations ; and that Joanna was, as always, a gay little gipsey, and the life of the company^ and it never oc- curred to him to imagine that these two or three hours wherein he wore his best coat, and submitted to this little temporary stir in the house, were any more to them, by chance, than they might be to himself. As the company thinned off, toward nine o'clock, this little scene took place between him and Mrs. Keuben in the tea-room, whence Huldah was removing the "things," and whither the doctor had come for a surreptitious " third cup " which he had not got at the regular time. " Where are the children ? I have n't seen them to-night." " Why, Gcrshom got Say into some sort of a scrape in the shed- - chamber, while the pigs were being fed ; and splashed her with *the pails, I believe ; I had n't time to dress her over, or to inquire much about it. I wish the boy was n't so rude and teasing." "Got into a scrape, did they? I'm -sorry for that. He's a very good sort of boy, though, Jane. A remarkably good boy ; and steady, too, for his age. I don't know what I should do without Gershom." Mrs. Gair was apparently intent upon a stain of something which had fallen upon the front breadth of her new silk, and which she was trying to wipe off with a wet napkin. " He ought to be a good boy," she remarked. " He owes more to you than he'll ever be able to pay." "Well, I don't know about that, — yet," said the doctor, " If things were squared up between Prue and the boy and me, I don't know exactly how the balance would stand, I 'm sure." "Everybody else knows. Why, father, you could not have done more for them if they 'd been your own. To be sure," she added, as glancing up from her labor, she caught a darkening look upon the doctor's face, " I know, of course, they seem just like your own. And I don't suppose there was ever a mixed-up family like ours, that thought so little of the difference. But when you talk of squaring up accounts ! By the way, father," — and Mrs. Gair laid down the napkin and reached the sugar foi? the doctor, DOWN AMONG THE COMPANY. 27 standing by, with a thoughtful expression, while he bountifully sweetened his tea, — "now you speak of him, have you ever thought what it will be best for him to do, one of these days '.' Ho 's getting to be a great boy. I must have a talk with yon about him when you're at leisure, sometime, before I go. I dare say Mr. Gair might find something for him in Selport" Mrs. Beubcn was scrupulous in always speaking of her hus- band as " Mr. Gair," in this neighborhood, where he had some thirty years before, run barefooted. " Time enough to talk about that," replied the doctor, a little impatiently. Thdn, setting down his cup, resting the knuckles o.' his hands upon the table-eifge, and bending forward so, for a moment, he seemed to take thought, and come to a resolve. " Jane," he said, seriously, after this instant's pause, chang- ing his posture and moving a pace closer to her side, — " don't speak to Eeuben of anything of the sort ; and don't talk to tbc boy about Selport. There 's time enough,, as I said ; and I have n't made up my mind. At least I should n't have spoken if you had n't begun. But Hilbury has always done well enough for me, and I 'vc been in hopes it might do well enough for Ger- shom. He 's all the boy I 've got, you know." Yes, Mrs. Gair knew now just what she had wanted to find out. The good doctor had no thought of Gcrshom Vorse but as his boy. " All tie boy he ,'d got" Jane Gair's work lay straight before her, and then and there she made an initial stroke. She, too, held herself an instant in deliberation, the while she resumed again the napkin she had laid down, and with its dry corner wiped, leisurely and solicitously, the damp spot upon her dress. " yes," she said, half absently, as people do when they are mainly intent on that which occupies their fingers, and speak mechanically. " There 's no hurry. And I don't know as it would have occurred to me to say anything about it, only that Gershom has been asking me some questions, now and then, sinec I came up, about the city. It seemed to me as though he had got a little restles3. Boys will, you know. There," — onee more dropping the napkin, and stroking down the folds of silk with her fingers, — "I don't see as I can do anything better for it, now." , " Better let it be," said Huldah Brown, coming in for a fresh relay of dishes, and catching the last sentence. " It 's grease, I guess. It's easier to spot thing3 than to clean 'em, a good deal." " Oh, well, never mind," answered Mrs. Eeuben, goodnatured- ly, " I '11 manage it among the gathers, and it won't show." And she moved away into the front rooms. 28 THE GAYWOETHTS. " Jane Gay worthy, all over!" ejaculated Huldah, as she came into the out-room again, where Eben sat, eating strawberry short- cake. " She alius thinks it 's no matter what 's done, as long as it 's tucked away in the gethers, out of sight. For my part, I like things good and clean, clear through. As soon as they 're spotted they 're sp'ilt, to my thinkin'." Eben pushed his emptied plate into the middle of the tahle, and tilting his chair upon its hinder legs, made a quadruped of him- self so, and walked himself back a few paces, as Yankees know how, till he rested comfortably against the wall. He had been seated within six feet, or thereabouts, of the steps that led up into the kitchen proper, through aTl the foregoing conversation. The busy handmaiden, in the clatter of her dishes, farther off, had caught nothing of it, save in her passages to and fro. " Huldy Brown ! " said Eben, emphatically, throwing up his arms over his head against the partition, and. crossing his long legs in the air. " I tell you what it is ! I don't want to jedge nobody ; but I b'liove, as I 've got a created soul, she 's thunder- in' sly!" CHAPTER m. peekin' and haekin'. When people decline peremptorily the discussion of affairs, you may be sure they go away and think them over all the more. An idea like this suggested itself to Mrs. Eeuben Gair. Her hint of Selport, and something for the boy to do, had not apparently taken direct effect ; but it might have set her father to consider- ing, perhaps a little prematurely, as regarded her own secret wish- es in the matter. Mrs. Beuben Gair was not mistaken in her surmise. She had set her father to considering. Or rather, considerations which had long been passively revolving, as il were, within his mind, at this word of hers took shape, came out, and would be looked at. They grew to definite questions, and demanded, sud- denly, decisions. " You could n't have done more for them, if they 'd been your own ! " There might be something more that he ought to do, be- cause they were not his own. Somehow, after Jane's words, this thought pressed upon him obstinately, and refused to evaporate itself into mere vague purpose for the future. He finished his cup of tea, and, turning away rather abruptly, walked out upon the doorstone where Eebecca and Say had had their little talk to- gether before the " company " came. The company — those of it who still remained — were gather- ed at the front of the house, within and without. Laughter and merry speech of young voices came around from the pleasant door- yard, where the moon shone down upon June roses, and upon human life also in its June. The good doctor stood musingly and listened ; looking up to the still, night-heaven, unrolling the same slow-moving, gorgeous scroll as long ago, when it had been blossoming-time with him as well. And, standing there, he felt, rather than thought, how men change, and lives pass, and the great, unaltered skies look down on all. God laid His hand over him so, and sealed thought into action. 3* 30 THE GAYWOETHYS. He scarcely knew why, but in those moments his " mind was made up." " I won't leave things at loose ends another hour," said he at last, and turning back from, the doorway, he walked straight through the long kitchen, passing on into his own little private room, which adjoined. Here he found his good friend, Parson Fairbrother, who, after having done his social duty among the company, had made his privileged way hither, to mouse, as he was apt to do, among the old books ; and was at this moment quite lost in something he had lit upon among the pages of Burton's Anatomy. " I want a little talk with you, Parson, if you please ; and I 've got a five-minutes bit of business to do. You shall take old Burton home if you like," said the doctor, closing the door by which he had entered — the parson had already shut that leading to the test parlor, to exclude disturbing sounds — and pushing two great leathern arm-chairs towards the table, in one of which he seated himself, while Mr. Fairbrother, turning down a leaf, carefully closed the volume, and came forward,* in compliance, to the other. When the parsonage party, — Sirs. Fairbrother, Malviny and Gordon King, with Miss Stacy Lawton, who had heedlessly let the Gibsons, her next-door neighbors, go home without her, fifteen minutes before, and who now availed herself of the Fairbrother escort, "only for as far as they went," — was gathering to take leave, the good minister, after considerable outcry, was found thus cosily closeted with the doctor ; and when summoned a second time by Malviny, sent word that they " might step along. He'd come presently." It was nothing unusual. Nobody gave the circum- stance a second thought, unless, indeed, the watchful, elder daugh- ter of the house. Presently — I should think, though, a good half hour after — Mrs. Gair, wondering very much, and waiting to put out the last candles, while her sisters were busied setting other things to rights, heard her father go with the minister to the front gate, and say good-night ; returning directly to his own little room again, whence, in a few moments, stole out the deferred fragrance of his evening Pipe- There seemed to be a good deal revolving in various brains that night in the Gayworthy farmhouse. It rifight have been late tea- drinking, or strawberry short-cake, or the mental stimulus of social contact ; whatever it was, people did not go straight to bed and to sleep, according to their wont. Mrs. Vorse, having with her own hands set every precious bit of china back into the closet sacred to its keeping, departed up the tkekin' and haekin'. 31 staircase to the kitchen chamber with an armful of linen, enjoin- ing on Huldah, as she went, to see everything safe in the out-room for the night. Huldah had milkpans to wash, and bread to set ; but she sang to herself cheerily, as left apparently alone in all the lower part of the house, she moved, not a whit loath or wearily, from kitchen to dairy, from dairy to the large, lonely out-room, where waited her last work for the night. She sang as she gathered her pans, whose contents had been rifled of their cream for the feasting ; as she wiped down sweet-smelling shelves, whose purity neither drop nor dust might defile ; as she poured away the skimmed milk into the large, tidy tub that stood in the far corner to accumulate the dainty waste whose destination we know ; sang on, with a sudden glee in her voice, as she carried the freshly-scalded tins out pres- ently at the door, and set them gleaming there in the moonlight, catching, as she did so, glimpse of a tall, stalwart figure — not raw-boned and shambling, but sturdy, well-built, albeit Yankee to the vertebral main-shaft — that gathered itself up from leaning over the garden fence, and sauntered with great strides towards her. The song broke into a laugh as she turned back again, ig- noring the presence, and said to herself, with a spasm of fun bub- bling up among her words : — " I knew it ! I was certin he 'd jest go and be redickl'ous agin ! " Eben Hatch and Huldah Brown had grown up, boy and girl together, upon the G-ayworthy farm. When Huldah was eighteen, her mother, — who had been " brought up," as the country phrase is for expressing board-and- clothes -remunerated service, by* the mother of Dr. G-ayworthy, and who had married, had a child, been widowed, and returned to her old employ, as if she had been simply put out at interest, — Hul- dah, with the eight years start in the world, standing for the per- centage of Mrs. Brown's ten years' absence, and accompanying her mother, to be profitably " brought up " in her turn, — had died, leaving the daughter to the comfortable hereditary position which was practically little less privileged or more precarious- than that of a daughter of the house. Since that time, Eben had had frequent turns of being what Huldah called " redickl'ous "; but as yet, owing, as he thought, to persistent ill-luck, — -'as Huldah secretly believed, to " special interpositions," — he had never, however often he had shamefacedly essayed it, got the step beyond, which might have touched the sublime; in his own words he had "somehow never quite made out to fetch it." They were always nervous occasions these, to Huldah; she 32 THE GAYWORTHYS. wouldn' t care to have them go a hair's-breadth further than they did; she hailed devoutly the "interpositions," which 'Provi dence — usually, it must be owned, through the instrumentality of her own womanly artifice — threw in ; she drew what would have been a long breath, if it had n't at the same time been a secret chuckle, when Eben, looking a blank surprise, found himself sud- denly at the end of his opportunity, — like the sheep fenced in with such a crooked art, that when he had fairly, as he thought, jumped the enclosure, he found himself back u P on the same side, — and the danger was for that time over. Nevertheless, at due in- tervals, she was best pleased after all that the peril should recur. If Eben had n't now and then been " redickl'ous " at home, there would have been no knowing that he was n't redickl'ous — nay, even achieving the sublime — elsewhere. So Huldah drew herself back out of the moonlight, with an in- stinct of shunning any over-sentimental accessories, and disappeared down the trap stairway to the cellar, for the jug of yeast, as Eben stepped over the threshold. " You there ? " she exclaimed, when she emerged again from below, and found him just where she knew he would be, waiting in the night-shine at the open door. " Yes. I 'm here, Huldy. Jest come an' look at the moon ! of all the June nights I ever sec, this i3 the crowner ! " Huldah understood him and his moon-rapture. The heavenly satellite had precious little, in reality, to do with it ; the same old story veiled itself so, in his homely New England dialect, that Lorenzo breathed to Jessica out there in Venice, in the verse she never heard of. If there had never been a moon, there would have been lovers, doubtless, all the same, and they might easily have found something eiss to talk about. What they pretend to look at, or to speak of, is no matter ; as well squashes as sun- beams ; the subject is but as the indifferent third substance,' in chemistry, — thrown in only that the others may unite ; the thing is, to bring the two souls together. Huldah however, eschewed the whole, as moonshine, all of it ; and taking herself away out of its perilous gleams, walked straight over to her bread-pan ; remarking, only, very unsympathetically, as she did so, that "she 'd seen the moon afore ; she guessed there was n't anything special about it ; at any rate she had n't time to look." If Huldah once got her hands fairly into the dough, — there was where Eben's bread would be, sure enough ; so while she measured the yeast, and scooped the orthodox hollow for it in the flour, and be- gan to stir it in, gently, with her wooden spoon, he ventured with a fresh persistence. peekin' and harkin'. 33 " The folks out there in the front yard, was tellin', to-night, about the moon lookin' different to different people ; come here, Huldy jest a minute ! I want to know how big you think it is ! " " You great gander ! " exploded Huldah, at this very barefaced and absurd artifice. But she glanced out of the open window, nevertheless, up at the moon's jolly disc, that laughed broadly down upon thorn both, through door and casement ; and laughed, heaven knows, at the same moment, on how many others like them, of varied place and degree. " They made it out," pursued Eben, not a whit abashed, " all tho way from a cart-wheel to a tea-plate : for my part, it looks as much as anything like the biggest meller punkin 't ever I see ! " " I can find something that 's enough like that, without going to the moon to look for 't ! " As pumpkins are not ordinarily abundant during the strawberry season, there was no resisting the conclusion that Huldah meant to be metaphorical, with a dash of personality. " Now, Huldy ! I '11 give in that you 're a plaguy smart girl, 'athout your goin' on to hector me, that way, all night. — See here — do you b'lieve all them stars has got people in 'em, like us ? " " I should hope not, exactly. I guess the Lord's got his hands full if they have ! " Huldah would neither be drawn into sentiment nor specula- tion ; she was bent, to-night, upon the purely practical ; this was plain from the way in which she plumped her capable hands into the pan, and began the sort of calisthenics that had developed to their comely proportions the not ungraceful limbs whose drapery, tucked up to the shoulders, displayed smooth-curving outlines that many a city belle, with a two-pronged elbow, might have looked upon in a sickening of envy. Eben must choose a shorter road to his object, than all the way around among the constellations. " Huldy !" began again the long-suffering wooer, approaching shyly the table at which, not devoid of a coquettish consciousness, Huldah tossed, and doubled, and patted and punched the wheaten mass that gave — and nothing, if you knew, gives better — oppor- tunity for such varied charm of attitude, — " you air a master hand at makin' bread, that 's a fact ! and as to strawberry short- cake ! I '11 be — buttered — if ever I ate such a one as that was to- night! " " Seems to me everything suits with you, just now, — from moon- shine down. " (Ah, Huldah ! that was a very badly played card. Eben had his trump all ready for that. He would have been obtuser, other- wise, than ever yet Yankee lover was.) 34 THE GAYWORTHYS. ^ " Yes, Huldah, — " and he came as close as the now very vig- orously busy elbows would let him, and his voice lowered a tone, and deepened with true feeling that struggled into homely expres- sion, — "I'm pretty well suited! I only wish — everybody else was ! — Do n't you think — " I hold that he was doing it very cleverly, now. He would have grown eloquent presently ; truth and passion, let them once get ut- terance, can be nothing else. But there came an interposition, as usual. Huldah was saved the necessity of thinking. There came a tread across the kitchen within, and the tall figure of Dr. Gay- worthy, in gown and slippers, appeared upon the upper step at the doorway. He held in his hand a candle that had been blown out. . " Things air overruled, certin, Huldah breathed to herself, as Eben precipitately made his way to the outer door again ; thrown back now upon the apparent comparative measurement of spheres, cereal and celestial. " Durn it all ! " muttered the unfortunate suitor, nonsuited. I never come so nigh fetchin' it, afore! Now I 've got it all to dew over ag'in ! Lord knows when, — I don't." Dr. Gayworthy reached his candle to the lamp upon Huldah's table, and borrowed a flame therefrom ; saying, as he did so — " When you have finished, Huldah, will you and Eben come to my little room a moment? I should like you to write your names as witnesses, upon a business paper I have had to sign." " Oh, certin," answered Huldah, giving her ball of dough a final roll and flop over, and smiting her palms up and down against each other, to shake off the flour. " Jest as soon as I 've washed my hands." Very much flustered, inwardly, was Huldah at this summons; first, with curiosity as to the document to be signed ; secondly, with the thrill of importance people who never had, nor expect to have, any personal concern with papers of consequence, are apt to feel at being called upon to make valid with their names the in- struments that dispose of the affairs of others ; thirdly, at the thought of the two names required in juxtaposition ; " it seemed so redick'lous; jest as if they was bindin' themselves to something, to- gether." She had time to think all this, as she washed her hands and let down her sleeves, and Dr. Gayworthy, setting down the lighted candle, followed Eben out into the moonlight,- to make sure of him, and to say something about the next day's mowing. There had been time, also, for certain other things to be thought and done, elsewhere. peekin' and iiarkin'. 35 The excitement she had had, and the strawberry short-cake she had eaten, had made little Sarah Gair restless to-night. So she had tossings and dreams and starts, and" wakings ; and at ten o'clock she roused, agitatedly, from a fearful vision, — of a horse's head without any body, that came in at the windows and chased her about the house, till her feet struggled vainly to move, and she stood paralyzed, with his hot breath pourin" close upon her, and enveloping her, —to find her mother standing by the. open sash, where nothing worse came in than the sweet night gleam, and the warm southwest sighs of June. Mrs. Gair was thinking. No, — not thinking, purely ; for thinking is a good thing. Worrying, scheming, wishing, antici- pating, — which half that we call thinking rSally is,— may be very different things ; very far from good in themselves or likely to work good when they ripen into action. This is the sort of " taking thought," that we are warned against. Mrs. Gair would better have gone to bed, and said her prayer for forgiveness, and deliver- ance, and daily bread, and left the details she was anxious about to the Knowledge and the Power that were beyond her own, than have stood there in the beauty of that summer night, striving selfishly to conjecture and to plan. What was there, you may wonder, for her to conjecture and to plan about ? Here was no lordly inheritance, whose bestowal was a question for the forethought and competition of long years ; that might rationally, according to the common acceptance of human nature, suggest motive for rivalry, and strategy, and craft. Here was only a plain New England homestead, and the property re- sulting from the thrift and industry that had held sway through a couple of generations, in which father and son, worthy and in- telligent farmer-physicians, had done simple credit and worked steady benefit to name and estate. This was all. Therefore you need not expect, devourer of high-flown and deep-laid romance, to find in these pages profound mysteries, diabolical contrivance, unheard-of wrongs, and a general crash of retribution and ecstacy at the end. Yet in ever so simple a New England family, there may be privacies and secrets ; there may be conflicting interests ; the Tempter may find a cranny wherethrough to whisper, be- guiling souls by mean motives to questionable acts. " There is a great deal of human nature in the world ; " and it is n't all over the water, where there are lords and ladies, and manorial estates ; for upwards of two centuries it it has been growing in these New England hills, and bringing forth fruit after its kind. Besides, even among the granite, gold does gather ; and the well-harvested results of two careful lives may present an aggregate at last, not at 36 THE GAYWOETHTS. all to be despised, even in its distribution according to a law whicU recognizes* no closer sonship in the first child than in the ninth. Also I have never noticed that, as the children of a household go out and meet their own varied fortunes in the world, there is apt to be any greater indifference to original claims, when money comes to be in question, with them upon whom success has so broad- - ly smiled that their share of patrimony might seem almost as coals to Newcastle, thafl with the rest. On the contrary, these New- castles are curiously ready to take in all the coal they can get, if ever a little ship comes along and brings any. So Mrs. Gair, with her husband owning four or five vessels upon the high seas, in thriving communication with West Indian and South Ameri3an ports, — holding himself as a mer- chant of consequence on Change, — troubled her mind here at the old homestead, in Hilbury, during her little summer stay, as to what might befall, regarding it, some ten, twenty, who knows but even thirty or more, years hence. And neither she nor little Say could sleep well this June night. Say, after she had cried out and called her mother to the bed- side, and gasped out the horror of her dream, and been soothed and hushed, and laughed at, and had the sheets and pillows smoothed, — got over her fright, and grew wide awake, and wanted a story. " Tell me, mother," she said, " about the earthquake when you were a little girl." Every child who has a mother, has also certain stereotyped " stories," for which, at all sorts of incongruous and inconvenient conjunctures, it teases her. This, of the earthquake, was chief favorite among Sarah Gair's.. So Mrs. Gair, with her mind running upon other things, told, mechanically, how, when she was quite a little girl,- she and Aunt Prue were left by themselves one winter night, in the house ; their father and mother having gone over to Decpwater to stay with a sick aunt ; and how, after they had popped corn, and roasted apples, and eaten simballs, and told stories till ten o'clock, they had all gone to bed, and to sleep. How, long after, they were wakened by a strange trembling, and a noise as if a great wind shook the house, though it was a calm, still, clear night, — or as if somebody walked about heavily, down stairs. How they — the sisters — called out from their room to Serena, Huldah's mother, who lived here then. " And the china rattled, mother 1 You left out that." Whatever variety children demand otherwise, they will have none in the telling of a story. Leave out a phrase or a circum- stance at your peril. peekin' and haekin'. 37 " Yes, the china rattled, — and they thought rohbers were in the house. And Serena, half awake, laughed at them, and told them to turn over aud go to sleep again. And then, in a minute, it came again — " Something at this instant actually rolled, or rumbled, faintly, in the house below. "Mother! " cried Say, bolt upright in bed, " there 's one now. Hark!" And something surely rumbled back again. " Nonsense, child! Lie down again. It's only Huldah, I suppose, rolling back the great table." But, for all that, Mrs. Gair did n't quite think so ; and after waiting a little while and listening, she said, suddenly, *' I '11 go down and get you a drink of water, Say, and then you must go to sleep." " But you have n't finished the story, mother! " " Never mind. Let it be till to-morrow morning. I '11 finish it then. I would n't think any more about earthquakes, to-night It was a simple thing, on the outside, Mrs. Gair's going down to fetch a glass of water for her wakeful child. If she had had nothing else in her mind, she might have gone and come back, and been led into no harm. As it was, it involved consequences that afterward she would gladly have gone back from. It is the double motive that makes the smallest doing perilous ; that takes us out of the track of Providence, concerning us, and puts us where wo have no business to be. Single-heartedness, alone, goes safely even among trivial things. If it had really been but care for the child which prompted her, Mrs. Gair would doubtless have finished her story, and gone quietly to bed. But she knew that people were still up and moving below ; she had not heard her father go to his chamber ; she was eager, restless, vaguely uneasy ; so she would go down and get a drink of water for Say, and look about herself a little, as she went. The stair-case upon which she stepped from her chamber door, and descended softly, came down to close within the front entrance of the house. On either side at the foot, opened doors ; that on the right into the family sitting-room ; on the left into the best parlor, between which and the kitchen was the Doctor's " little room," — office, library, or study, — so phrased. Mrs. Gair set her light upon the lower stair, and passed noise- lessly into the parlor. Here the shutters had been closed, and it was dark. The door communicating thence with the little room was ajar ; the aperture showing by a faint gleam, — but only of the moon. 4 38 THE GATWOETHYS. There was no other light there ; and all was still. But voices were distinguishable away out in the house beyond. Mrs. Gair glided back and took up her candle. She would just see how things looked. Without any definite idea, she wondered what her father could have been about, or occupied with in thought, to be kept so beyond his usual regular hour. ' Very little, it seemed. On the writing-table which stood in the centre of the floor, lay a half sheet of paper, folded back across the middle, — the doubled edge uppermost. Below the fold, a couple of lines, in the large, nervous, handwriting of her father, were visible to Mrs. Gair. Possibly only a prescription or a bill. She would see. Jane Gair ! Are you in the line of Providential orderings, now ? Has God or the devil brought you hither to search out this? In five min- utes you will hold that in your knowledge which, hereafter, you would almost give five years of your life, if it might only, so, be stricken from your memory. So you should have had no sin. Henceforth, your sin remaineth. "Signed, this night, June 27, 18 " Benjamin Gay worthy. " In presence of Felix Fairbrother." Jane Gair turned the paper. There were perhaps, fifteen lines upon the upper half of the page. Her eye glanced over them quickly, and a sudden flame flashed into her cheeks. Not shame. She had,aot begun to think of that, though it should surely come. For she laid the folded paper back, deliberately, as she had found it, walked out into the parlor again, blew out her candle, stood still, and listened. Doctor Gayworthy's step was already heard, recrossing the kitchen. He re-entered his room- and approached the table. Huldah's true-poised footfall followed, and then the clumsy tread of Eben, behind, making miserable work of trying to walk lightly, as befitted carpets. Huldah moved straight on, close after the doctor, and only paused when he did ; standing just behind him, leaning a little forward, one arm akimbo, the other hanging by her side, the fingers of its hand rolling, a little nervously, a fold of her gown. Flurried, but alert ; all her keen, feminine senses, ready to com- prehend quickly, and do creditably. Eben, less eager, more bash- ful, fell back. He took up his station, waiting, just beside the door-post, on the other side of which, in the dark parlor, stood that other figure, keen and alert also, listening at every pore. feekin' and harkin'. 39 It was only for an instant, but in that instant, Eben Hatch had the vague, strange consciousness that we have all known of an unseen human presence. The room behind him, beside whose open door he stood, did not feel empty. He made an involuntary step into the entrance. Jane Gair shrunk a little, as involuntarily ; there was a slight, crisp sound, — it might have been the maple leaves in the night wind, — Eben had not time to conjecture, or to recognize the unfamiliar silken whisper. The Doctor took up a pen, and glanced round. " This, you see, — both of you," — Eben came forward, — " to be my signature ;"• and he rapidly traced over his own bold characters at the right of the sheet. " Now Huldah, your name here." Huldah received the pen with a look of shy importance, thinly disguised by an air of matter-of-course acquiescence, and carefully straightening the paper before her, sat down, and occupied perhaps a minute in executing, in her handsomest . style of hair lines and bulgy dots, acquired with infinite pains, the letters of her name, which had an appearance, when finished, as if constructed of some minute specimen of the seaweed which grows in an alterna- tion of thin strings and leather bubbles. Then Eben essayed ; and with many slow vibrations of his head from side to side, accompanied with reverse, or balancing motions of his rigidly protruded tongue, — grasping the pen close down toward the nib, and inking himself profusely, accomplished, duly, " Ebcnezer Hatch, " the " ezer " a little detached and raised above the plane of the " Eben, " as long unaccustomed to the conjunc- tion, and the " Hatch " rushing headlong down hill, as if ashamed of, and eager to get away from both. Doctor Gayworthy's " business paper " was signed. It had be- come a valid instrument. He dismissed his witnesses with thanks, and the remark that there would be no need for them to mention what they had done. No_ need, truly. They knew very little about it. The witness who did know all, but who had signed no name, stood passively, in the shade of the room beyond, and looked in, still, toward the light, to see what next. She saw Doctor Gayworthy turn from the table, folding the paper as he did so, and stand with it in his hands, for two or three minutes, as*if in deliberation, before the fireplace. Following his movement with her eyes, she noticed against the quaint, carved panel above the mantel, which formed, as she knew, the sliding door to a chimney cupboard but little used, and for many years but rarely opened, her father's keys ; of which one, holding the others pendant, occupied the keyhole. Upon the shelf below, lay a large old, embroidered letter-case, the dim colors of whose cover she well 40 THK GAYWOETHYS. remembered in the childish days when her most valued and eagerly sought privilege had been to see the panel cupboard opened, and be shown the queer old relics of the past which had been laid away there. For years,, as I said, this cupboard had been rarely opened. For years, Jane Gair had scarcely thought of its exist- ence. For all her life to come, she would scarcely forget it, now. Doctor Gayworthy stood, and seemingly considered. Presently, he took up the letter-case, from which the faded string of ribbon hung unbound, and drew from it a packet of several sheets folded together, which he held and turned, hesitatingly, in his hand. " * Such share and privilege as would so fall,' " — he said, slowly, to himself, in a half audible way. "By will, or law. Yes, that certainly secures it all. And if things should happen backward, and I should change my mind, its only this slip of paper, and the other would still remain. It's all safe, for .the present.' " The Doctor spoke these concluding words, more nearly aloud, and briskly, as one settling a perplexity ; and changing his atti- tude from the limpness of a momentary indecision to the muscu- lar up-gathering of satisfied and assured purpose, replaced the packet, slipping in behind it, the thinly-folded and just-written sheet, tied up the case, and putting his thumb against a carved projection of the panel-door, rolled it back) and laid all carefully away upon a shelf within. Jane Gair took advantage of the sliding of the somewhat pon- derous and unwilling door, to effect her escape unheard. " All safe for the present," repeated the doctor, softly, as he turned the lock, and put the keys in his pocket. For the present. Yes. But that paper, just written, is to lie there, unseen, for seventeen years. And, meanwhile, many things will have happened. ' Huldah had gone, upon being dismissed, straight out, as she had come straight in ; crossed the great kitchen, and passed down into the out-room, to put away the few utensils she had had about in her bread-making. Eben stopped in the great room. . There was a door between the fireplace and that leading into the Doctor's study, which open- ed upon the passage — narrow here, behind the stairs*- running the length of these two left-hand rooms, to the front door of the house. In through the fan-light, and side sashes, poured the full moonlight. Eben set the door softly ajar, by a space the width of his eye only, and applied thereto that useful organ. " If there 's peekin' and harkin' goin' on, I might as well be in for a share of it," he said to himself. peekin' and harkin*. 41 There was a moment or two of utter silence, in which Eben be- gan almost to think that there could be nobody " harkin," after all, except himself; but then came the heavy rolling of the cupboard door, and a figure passed across the light, and glided up the stairs. Eben heard also, quite distinctly, even above the other sound, the heavy rustle that was not among the maples. " The doctor's a little deef, no doubt, Miss Gair," he said, to himself, again, with an emphatic nodding up and down of his head, as he carefully reclosed the door, and dropped the latch noiselessly, " but I kinder guess .Taint, and I 've heerd consider- ble to-night, one way an' another." When Huldah came back, he said not a word of this ; but human-wise must have one upon the transaction of the night, so far as they had both participated in it. I say, human-wise ; for, assert as you will, curiosity is neither male nor female, but be- longs to the race. In a case like this, where the two are con- cerned, let the woman but hold her peace for awhile, and see, then, if the man don't speak ! " I wonder if that air could 'a ben anything about the prop- erty, now ! 'T warnt a will, think, — was it Huldy ? " " Bless your benighted ignorance, . Eben, no ! Why, there warn 't half room for a will. 'T warn't but a half sheet o' paper writ on one side ; and we put our names right in the middle o' that. 1 've seen wills afore now, Eben. Twice. And I can tell you it takes an awful sight o' words to make one. Its jest like the House that Jack built. Whenever they say anything new, they have to begin and say the rest all over ag'in ; so 't you'd think you 'd never get to the end on 't. Besides, the doctor's made his will, long ago. He altered it over jest after Ben died. My mother was knowin' to it. No, — 't warnt a will, nor nothing of the sort. You may make your mind easy about that. Most likely 'twas only some little church business, 'twixt him and the Parson." " Well," said Eben, slowly, leaning his elbow against the kitchen mantel, and availing himself of leverage so obtained to scratch his head effectively, — " I— rdon't — know ! maybe its a what's name ! A thunder ! I know, well enough what the word is, only I can't fetch it ! Something that 's second thoughts to a will. They string on a dozen of 'em,' sometimes. You see, when they get the kite all framed and prepared, they begin, then, on the tail ; and they can put on jest as many bobs as they like ! " "Blessed be nothing!" ejaculated Huldah, lighting a second candle for Eben, and turning away with her own. " I guess there won't have to be many bobs to my kite-tail ; nor your 'n, neither, Ebenezer Hatch ! " 4« 42 THE GAYWORTHYS. " Mother ! " cried Say, sitting up in bed again, when her moth- er returned to her at last. " \know there's been an earthquake since you 've been down stairs ! I heard it ! " Perhaps there had, in a way. But Mrs. G-air only said " non- sense ! " again, and bade the child go to sleep ; and cautioned her not to talk about hearing earthquakes to anybody else, for they 'd be sure to make fun of her, — especially Gershom. " But where 'a my drink of water, mother ? " "I couldn't get it. The light went out. You must goto sleep." CHAPTER IV. 8TACT LAWTON'S WALK HOME. Stacy Laytton bade Mrs. Fairbrother a cordial good-by at the Parsonage door ; and even bestowed a sudden kiss upon Malviny, who, glancing up in surprised inquiry as it descended, received it upon the snubby end of her little, freckled nose. Then, hastily, she held out a hand to Gordon King. " Good-night. I 'm so much obliged. No, indeed, you must n't come a step further. I shan't be a bit afraid, now." And, as if she were very honestly in earnest, she turned away, quickly, be- fore the young minister could reply, and took the start of him, resolutely, up the road. How much of this haste and determina- tion might have been accounted for by a glimpse she got of Newell Gibson coming around the corner of the cross-road at the bottom of the hill, and the perception that his approach might pres- ently do away with the necessity for any persistence on the minis- ter's part, I really do not know, and being simple-minded and charitable myself, will not attempt to conjecture ; but of course, Gordon King did persist, and follow and join the self-willed damsel, whose trim little figure moved off so prettily and positively before him, in the moonlight, over the long, steep slope. Newell Gibson knew better than to overtake them. Besides, he had his own thoughts to-night, that lingered pleasantly around the little brown house whence he had just come, down there in the cross-road under the hill. He, too, had been to see somebody home. "You needn't have come," said Stacy to Gordon King, as he reached her side. " It 's as bright as day. Does n't the moon- light make everything look beautiful ? " And she swung by the strings, as she spoke, her muslin cape-bonnet, needless since the summer sun went down, and turned her bright face toward him, above which the night-gleam touched and crowned the full, grace- ful folds of her uncovered hair. Truly, he thought so, then. 44 THE GATWORXHYS. " It 's a glorious night," he answered. " It seems a wonder that we can shut our doors, or our eyes, at all." " I like moonlight," said Stacy. " But the stars seem awful when the sky is full of them. I remember the first time I ever saw them so. I was so frightened. It was when I was a very little girl, and grandma took me out one night to an evening meeting. I had never been kept up so late before ; and, coming home, they blazed down, so bright and thick ! I thought the Day of Judgment was come." That word of Stacy's changed the tone between them. It pierced the surface, and went down, however heedlessly, into the deeps that lay beneath. Gordon King believed in his solemn office, and in the things it handled. He gave no look at the pretty face, for a moment He felt a soul beside him that had trembled at the Judgment. " You are not afraid in the starlight, now?" This he said, inquiringly, meaningly. After the little pause wherein the thought-current of each had shifted. They stood, at this moment, on the brow of the long hill. They stopped, involuntarily. Below, lay such a scene as lies, I suppose, hardly -anywhere, out of New England. Among abrupt and pic- turesque heights, whose nearer wooded slopes were thinned and smoothed by cultivation, yet whose far horizon lines bristled every- where with piney forests, untouched, unthrid ; set in the centre of the great landscape, — held so in the scoop of the hills as almost in the hollow of an Almighty Hand, — the few white farm-houses that made up this little neighborhood in which was Stacy's home, clustered peacefully, and lay still in the moonlight around Gib- son's Pond. So the country people had christened, in their homely, practical fashion, a great, glorious sheet of water that flashed up, now, its flood of silver, meeting and overbrooded by the more ethereal firmamental flood of light, that poured itself down, and rolled and gathered, as it were, in a huge chalice, against these steeps that held it in. A lake, which, — but that Hilbury pond was larger, and Deepwater larger yet, and that every village, almost, had one, greater or less, of its own, between this and the low lands of the sea-coast, where the great cities buzzed and grew, — might have had a name of music and gran- deur, and held itself serenely here, in a royalty of beauty, to touch the border of whose robe men might make weary pilgrimage. " Yes," said Stacy, falteringly, as they looked down on this together, " I am afraid. I am not good." If there were art in this, it was the instinctive art whereby one soul draws itself toward the recognized and higher sphere of an- STAcr lawton's walk home. 45 other. The child bethought herself of her soul at that moment. "When the heart is stirred, if it lie at any depth at all, that which sleeps beneath must feel the thrill. She believed that he who stood beside her in this glory of the summer night, had a title to come closer to the spirit of it all, than she. In the one great overshadowing beauty she forgot, for a moment, the little coquetries of her own. Now that it has come to this, you, Kebecca, — saying, "Thy Will be done " in your chamber, that is like a shrine for the purity of the thought and act it witnesses, and only half glancing, in your secret maidenly soul, at, what might befall, to make\ that Will seem earthly-bitter, may school and strengthen yourself as you can, to bear and to do without. Since Adam followed his erring wife out of Paradise, — dearer to him, doubtless, than when he began to have pity for and patience with her, than when she came to him, faultless, from the hand of God, — there has been more hope, as to the love of man, for the sinning little Eves with the taste and perfume of the world's apple yet clinging to their lips, than for such as you. You are too far above him in your saintliness. You, who do not tremble at the stars, but who bend ever, in a sweet and holy awe, before their Maker, — who need no more the tears of a passionate penitence, because, in your noiseless life, you do daily the work that is given, and feel daily the patience that forgives your shortcomings, — you may not rival with the spiritual, any more than with the earthly witcheries of the pretty unregenerate, who needs yet something done for her ; who leans toward a human help ; who whispers with a new-born anxiety of her soul and of her sins. • Besides, any sort of professional dealing of man toward woman, where there is beforehand the faintest incipience of tender thought, is tolerably sure to do the business for them both. There is a sentiment in the one which loves to approach, shyly, the mystery of the other's strength and wisdom ; there is a pride and chivalry in the other which is stirred pleasantly in the consciousness of extending help or protection. It is the very soul of the whole relation between the two. " I think you will be," said Gordon King, presently, with a gentleness ; and the thought of what she might be — of what he might see her, perhaps help her, to become — was more to him than all the beautiful attainment elsewhere. It was only human. One loves better the slip of green one cherishes in the root- ing, than the fair, strong, perfect plant that flowers already with- out one's help. So they walked on together, down the hill, in that light of sky 46 THE GAYWOKTHYS. and water. Two or three minutes more brought them to Squire Lawton's gateway. " I think you will be," repeated Gordon King, as their hands met upon the lateh, and he held his companion's, for an instant, with a friendly clasp. And Stacy thought, very honestly, that she would. CHAPTER V. THE SECRET AT THE IIAUTSHORNES. Human histories and events go by periods and conjunctures, ag well as the great planetary forces and systems. All are under one like law. This night of the 27th of June, which passed so seemingly unmarked, save by a simple social gathering, over the little town of Hilbury, and into the lives that revolved together, working out this story that I write, was a focus wherefrom radi- ated much. Hereafter, years may be missed in the narration ; to-night, hardly a moment or a thought. Mrs. Hartshorne went home early from the party ; took" *' Trench leave," as she called it, making more bustle in doing so, however, through explaining to every member of the family the why, than could possibly have been accomplished in any other manner. But, underneath the bustle, her good heart was anxious, troubled. She said, that " Gabe would be tired after his day's sail, and she would n't wait to make him come for her ; " that " father had a headache, which was why she came alone ; " she knew, false-lipped woman that she was, that Gabriel had come back from Deepwater before she left her home, no more tired than a hearty young New-Englander should be, after a day's toil or frolic, and with no thought but to dress in his best and go to the strawberry party. But a shadow that was coming over their simple home, — a fearful something which they did not name, as yet, even to each other, — lifted its apparitional finger, and stayed them in this, as in many another hope and plan to come. There was a secret at the Hartshorne's ; a secret surmised, as yet, by none but mother and son ; but which should come to be more than surmise with all the little world about them, as such things do, long before they would acknowledge in words, between them- selves, the terrible truth. There Was something queer about old Mr. Hartshorne. He took strange fancies now and then. He did things in odd ways, and at odd times. 48 THE GATWORTHTS. " Gabriel," his mothe* had said, as the young man came down from his little corner bedroom that looked, out toward the Gay- worthy farm, aDd whence he could see the flutter of a white cur- tain at one particular window of the doctor's mansion, — he looked bright and handsome, to-night, in his new, dark-blue coat, and with the yellow-brown waves tossed back above the broad brow and beaming blue eyes, — " Gabriel, you don't care no great about the party to-night, I suppose ? " " AVell, — no ; nothing particular. Why ? " returned Gabriel, forcing down heart and conscience with one great gulp, and hold-,, ing them there with this lie that he laid upon them. " Because, father's taken a notion that he won't go ; he says he must walk clear over .to the five-acre lot, to «mow a piece rounda turkey-hen that's settin' there, for fear the men should oome foul of her in the mornin' ; an' I donno how, exactly, to leave him to go alone. It 's kinder pokerish over there, and he might cut him- self, — or something." " Well, — I '11 go with him," said Gabriel, slowly, turning to go up-stairs again and take off the best suit. The cloud that came over his face, — the sudden quench in the beaming blue eye, — told nothing to his mother that her own heart did not an- swer to and explain. And Gabriel inquired curiously after the turkey's nest, and " took a notion " in his turn, to walk over with his father to the five-acre lot, in the low sunlight, and fibbed again when he said ho " didn't feel much like rigging up "for a party ; " which had been true but for the last five minutes, since he unrigged, and went his way, bearing the glittering scythe upon his shoulder, as any martyr might bear the weapon of his sacrifice ; and Mrs. Hartshorne rendered herself at the tea-party as we have seen ; and Joanna had hard, disappointed, bitter, mistaken thoughts, and carried them away to bed with her, and cried over them, as she had promised herself; and of all possible things never dreamed in her imaginings, of this, — that Gabriel might haply, be some- how as compulsorily, and painfully disappointed as she. The best reasons for human conduct are often, alas! precisely those which can never be given to them who demand of us the why. And so a story of misconception, which should not, for long, be made quite clear, began, between these two. So the threads of these lives, which seemed about to be caught together in a web of joy, were ravelled apart for awhile, and floated away from each other, reaching and feeling, — unfastened thrums, — into a hope- less void. It was a good two hours before Gabriel Hartshorne was free of THE SECRET AT THE HAETSHOKNES. 49 his father. The turkey's nest was islanded with a fragrant swath, — the " heft " of the crop noted and rejoiced over, — the tons of good timothy and clover calculated, — a circuit taken, — in a dreamy loiter by the old man, in a fever of impatience by the young one, — around by the brook, and up through the long mead- ow ; and then there was a delay at the barn, — scythes looked to for the morrow ; Gabriel sent down the lane, by a sudden thought, to see if the bars were up at the end; and, last of all, after they had fairly reached the house again, a fidget about the lantern they had lighted for a minute* in the tool-room, and Gabriel must go back to the barn and examine, lest by chance there might be any sparks about. By the time all this ras over and his father composed to the smok- ing of his evening pipe, the young man was tired. Tired in body and in spirit. Besides, the shoes he had blackened so nicely were all unpolished and dusty, now ; his clean wristbands crump- led ; the feeling of freshness and fitness gone beyond possibility of renewal by the changing of a coat ; the hour was late, according to their primitive customs, and presently, deciding all question that he might else have had, he saw from the front gate where he stood and leaned, thinking gloomily, his mother's stout, comfort- able figure moving homeward in the mingled light of sunset and moonrise, down the hill. " Well, Gabriel. How's father ? " "Inside, smoking his pipe." " You look tired. Where 've you been ? " " AH round the lot. He 's been pretty res'less. How was the party ? " " Elegant. I wish you 'd a been there. Mis' Gair was as fine as a fiddle ; and as to that Joann, she docs beat all for carryin ' on. I never see a girl in such spirits as she was to-night. It kinder frightens me, too, when young folks begin so. They '11 take such a lot o' soberin' down. I was pretty chipper myself when I was her age." Good Mrs. Hartshorne ended with a sigh. In its fleeting breath exhaled a subtile distillation of .many a sorrow that had come upon her since the " chipper " days. There were slabs in the churchyard to tell of some ; there were care and labordines on face and hands, that might hint at others ; there was something in the very breaking off of her report of the just past festivities, and the quickening of her footsteps toward the house, that had to do, as Gabriel knew, with an unspoken weight that lay upon her now. He followed his mother into the house, asking no more ques- • tions. * 5 50 TIIE GAYWOETHYS. Joanna had been gay, to-night, then. She had missed nothing from her pleasure. — Well ! From the corner bedroom he could see the white curtain still in the moonlight. There came a light that glimmered behind it, for a little while, and then went suddenly out, as something that flared wildly for an instant, and quenched coldly, also, in his own heart. And night and stillness lay between the two homes. God ! who holdest all lives in Thine own bosom, wherein all are quickened and commune together ! what is this space, this circumstance, which Thou hast made,, that can — ever so little of it — part them so; that can keep them so un wistful of each other, even in Thee ? Sunday came. The old meeting-house was full of its Sabbath fragrance. Do you know what I mean ? Did you ever sit — a great while ago it must have been, to be sure — in one of. those family inclosures in an old-fashioned country church, whose space is railed off in roomy squares, and smell the mingled incense that goes up, on a summer day, with the prayers and praises ? The tender aroma of fresh flowers, held here, and there in a hand that has gathered them just the last thing at home, or on the way; the odor of aromatics, — of peppermints, perhaps, or nibbled cloves ; the lavender and musk that breathe faintly forth from the best laces, muslins, and ribbons ; to say nothing of whiffs, now and then, that betray spice-cake and simballs and sage-cheese, stowed away carefully in sanctuary cupboards, under the hinge-seats, until the " nooning " ? Whatever you may think, there was noth- ing disagreeable about it, — nothing even of coarseness or dese- cration ; to long-accustomed nostrils, it was the very atmosphere of the Lord's Day; and the life-long, subtile. association helped the people, doubtless, even in their prayers. Little Sarah Gair found it all very delightful, contrasted with city church-going, where people shove themselves into narrow crannies, and sit with their knees against one board and their hacks against another, — stuck in rows, like knives in a knife- box, — compressing the body, by way of expanding the soul. There was nothing Say liked better than to go to meeting in Hil- bury ; to sit in the corner, on the broad window-seat that came in so . as to* form a commodious place for two, and where Gershom was usually her companion ; to listen to the full- voiced village choir, and look up with a sort of childish awe at the row of men and maidens who filled the " singing-seats," and bore part in the solemn service of praise ; to glance from group to group of the crowded congregation, and, when tired of bonnets and faces with- in, to turn eyes and thoughts outward, where the stone slabs were THE SECRET AT THE IIAKTSHORNES. 51 planted thickly, marking the more Solemn congregation of the dead ; to walk round, quietly, from pew to pew in the nooning, or to go with Aunt Kebecca into the churchyard, and read the names, — it did n't seem a sad, but rather a pleasant and beautiful thing, to be lying there, where neighbors and friends came up and walked weekly, and talked gently, among the green graves, — or to go with Aunt Joanna to a neighbor's house, and eat sitnballs, and hear the great girls talk, which was pretty much all the little girls could do on Sunday ; and as for the in- cense we were speaking of, Say always complained to her mother, when she got back to Selport, that it "did n't ever smell like Sunday there ! " t These were her impressions. Quiet Aunt Eebeeea, — merry Aunt Joanna, — pretty Stacy Lawton, who looked unwontedly de- mure to-day, — stout, good-natured Mrs. Hartshorne, and Gabriel, who, as first tenor, stood next, in the singing- seats, to Joanna, leading the treble, — with scores of others, whose hidden life it does not come within our especial province to trace, — had theirs. Gabriel came late into the gallery. He was shy of meeting Joanna ; feaif ul of the resentment she might show him for his apparent slight. He encountered something worse than resent, ment An utter unconcern. Joanna was as blooming to-day in her ''cottage-straw" with its blue ribbons, — her eye was as clear, her cheek was as fresh, as if that " cry " of the other night had never been. Her shoulder turned not a hair's breadth from the line of his, as they stood side by side in the opening hymn. Her hand shrunk with no disdain from the touch that met it for an instant, as they turned the pages of their books to find the tune. She settled a little, comfortably, into the corner of her seat which the narrow passage separated from his, when the ser- mon began, and the cottage-bonnet just shaded her face from his sight After service, her " how-dye-do, Mr. Hartshorne," in answer to his greeting, was to the last degree insmteiante ; and then, just as he was about to say something more, she caught her name whispered from behind, and turning promptly, yet without any undue quickness, responded to some proposition or remark, and was drawn away among the girls, and down the left-hand staircase, which was the feminine exit. She went, with half a dozen of them, down the hill from the meeting-house, between the rows of poplars, to Deacon Whit- taker's ; the deacon's daughter, Carrie, leading the way. Gabriel stood among a group of young men at the church-door, and saw them pass. Presently, they disappeared round the corner of the large, old, 52 THE GATWOETHYS. tmpainted house, whose great square open porch gave, not upon the road, but upon the smooth sloping grass-plat at the side. Here, buzzing and fluttering, as bees and maidens alone know how, they clustered and chatted, while baskets were opened and the simple nooning meal, that needed intervention of neither knife nor fork, was eaten. " Where 's Stacy Lawton ? " asked somebody. " I can't tell you that, but I can tell you one thing, girls," said Joanna Gay worthy. " And before it happens, too. We 're in for a revival ; and Stacy Lawton' s going to lead off. She 's getting impressions, you may depend upon it.- And some others, too, per- haps. You '11 see 'em in the anxious-seats, before long. The parson ought to have left that text for Gordon King, though." "Oh, Joanna, how can you?" the others exclaimed, and laughed. The morning sermon had been from the words, " Give me thine heart." " Well, I can't help it, when • I see how things go on. Beli- gion's so interesting when a handsome young man comes and talks about it. Why, poor Mr. Fairbrother might have preached his cheek bones through, and his eyes into hollows till they came out at the back of his head, and nobody would have been the least bit anxious. But those waving locks ! and those heavenly eyes ! and'sech afigger!' as Sabiah Millet says! I'm sure I. don't know what the sinners can be made of, if they don't come under conviction ! " While Joanna spoke, the three or four young men, of whom Gabriel Hartshorne was one, eame into the door-yard, and passed the porch, going towards the well, which) with its long sweep and wide curb, occupied a central position in the space between house and garden, not so far from the porch as to be beyond conversa- tional distance. There were almost always girls in the porch and young men about the well, in these summer Sunday noons. Jo- anna, standing upon the step, facing inward, neither paused nor turned, but talked on recklessly, as they went by. " I never heard anybody run on as you do ! " cried Eunice Gibson. " It don't make any difference what it 's about. It was just so at your party the other night. How you did train ! Tou made fun of everything that came up." " Yes; Satan entered into me. And I don't believe he's gone out yet. So don't set me going. I should like to be a little proper on Sunday. Here comes Mrs. Prouty. Her umbrella's always up. She's never caught in a shower." " What do you mean ? " " Why, don't she always make you feel as if you were out in ^TIIE SECRET AT THE HAKTSIIOKNES. 53 the rain, and she standing utftler cover, chuckling ? She does me. Her work's always so dreadfully sure to be done up, whether it's cheeses or sal vation. She is not as other women are. There's never anything left over on a Saturday night, with her. Don't you see how her mouth's primmed up ? That's as much as to say the wash- ing and mending and churning and cleaning and baking are all through with, up to the minute, and her soul seen to, besides. — Mrs. Prouty! Where's Eliza ? We're going down the Brook Boad, presently, for a little walk." " Eliza stayed in. She's preparing herself for her Sunday School class," replied Mrs. Prouty, precisely, and with a tone of subdued eelf-.gratulation. Her daughter, also, was not as other people's daughters were. " Was n't that Christian of me, to give her such a dance ? See how much good it 's done her," whispered Joanna to Eunice, as Mrs. Prouty passed them, and went in. " We 're such terrible creatures, you know, talking and laughing over our luncheon, and going to walk. And it 's such a satisfaction to her to see it ! I don't know what some saints would do, if there was n't a world round them lying in wickedness ! " " Hush ! there she is at the window ! " Mrs. Prouty had entered the deaconess' sitting-rbonl, and taken a position where she could converse directly with that lady, and if occasion offered, send a few words also, over her shoulder, at the group»upon the porch. In a minute or two the side-fire began. " Yes, it was a very feeling discourse ; and I do hope we shall see some fruits of it. But it seems pretty hard to make any impres- sion on our young folks, somehow. It 's in at one ear, and out at the other, with most of 'em." " Might as well be so, perhaps, as in at the ear and out at the mouth," commented Joanna, in an under-tone. " I 'm afraid there's some mischeevous influence, that undooes it all," continued Mrs. Prouty with a- sigh. " I know there is : but it is n't the sort you mean. Come girls, let's go and have our walk. I shall say something out loud, pres- ently, if we stay here." " I can't bear," continued Joanna, as the little party prepared to move, at her suggestion, "to be put into a dark closet, and have somebody continually coming to look in, and ask me if I'm sorry yet. I always feel like saying, as I did to my mother once, when I was a little girl. ' When I horry, I let oo know ! ' " " But then, " said one of the group, timidly, " I don't think we ought to make fun of such things." 5 o 54 THE GATWOETHTS. " Nor I, neither, Abby," answered Joanna, quickly, and with a changed manner. "I don't make fun of the things ; it's only the way people behave about them. It is n't real. It is n't nat- ural. When folks really do give their hearts, whether it's to God or a fellow-creature, it is n't a thing, I think, that they run round telling about. There's only one concerned to know anything about it." This sudden shifting to earnest, and of such outright sort, threw an astonished silence, for a moment, over the company. The girls did n't always know just how to take Joanna Gay- worthy. "Whether the allusion to giving of hearts, or the approach of the young men, who now came up from behind, as if to join them, suggested the next remark or not, it came, with an unintentional "by the way," that made Joanna secretly wince. "Why wasn't Gabriel Hartshorne at your house the other night?" " Sure enough ! I don't know. I '11 ask him." The quick, fine, feminine artifice of this, Gabriel, catching the words, could not discern. He took them at their surface meaning, and verily believed that she had never thought to miss him, or to wonder why he had not come. She, who had kept the whole company merry ! Man-like, he turned off in a clumsy huff, and walked beside Eunice Gibson. She put the question. " I came home late from Deepwater," he answered ; " and afterwards, I was wanted, — at home." " A good plan, to stay where he was sure of that," whispered Joanna, as she moved forward with her companion. This was the word too much, which women are pretty sure to say when they try to cover up with words their true feelings. She bit her lip when she had spoken it. If Gabriel had not been already set off with such an impetus upon the wrong track, it might have gone far to guide him upon the right one. But men always do rush away headlong, at the first word ; and another, sent after, drives them forward, rather than brings them back. There 's where we have advantage of them. The effervescence of Joanna's sauciness was over, however. She subsiding, the little party walked, in a new mood of quietness, tinged, perhaps, with a slight, half-recognized constraint, onward, down the Brook Koad ; paused a moment or two, upon the narrow bridge, listening to the Sunday song of the busy waters; and then, like the "King of France with twenty thousand men," turned, at her lead, and " marched up again." An evolution THE SECBET AT THE HABTSHORNES. 55 which, to them, as to the king in the old rhyme, had, doubtless, its own meaning. With two of the number, it had at any rate, its own result. { A word, or the want of a word, is a little thing ; but into the momentary wound or chasm, so made or left, throng circumstan- , ces ; these thrust wider and wider asunder, till the whole round ' bulk of the world may lie between two lives. CHAPTER VI. THE DAIRY FAKM. " The world is so full of other folks," said Joanna, wearily. She was sitting by the pleasant garden-window in Kebecea's room. A great cherry-tree, full of fruit and birds, tossed its wide arms up against the house-front, and almost grew in at every opening. She looked out into its green intricacies and watched the robins, that feasted fearlessly, even when she reached a hand to the hither bough, and gathered, half absently, for herself, a dinner or two out of their crimson store. Downstairs, the house was shaded, open, clean and cool, from end to end. The early country dinner was over, and cleared away. Huldah was turning cheeses in the cheese-room. Mrs. Vorse was taking her after-dinner nap. Say and Gershom were down in the garden, on a great rock, over which a plum-tree hung. Mrs. Gair had been gone to Selport a week or more. Say was left there with her aunts, until September. A box of cloth- ing, with books and toys, had come up by the stage the night before. Among the rest, was that unfailing childish delight, " Swiss Family Robinson ; " and for Gershom, a present from thoughtful Aunt Jane, a copy of Dana's " Two ^Years before the Mast." These books, and Say's life-size linen baby, kept the children abundant company down there on the great, green-cano- pied, granite divan. There had been question, among the sisters, of plans for the remainder of the day. Mrs. Prue had said that somebody ought to go and see Mrs. Eockwood. Mrs. Prue rarely paid visits. " Somebody" meant the girls, of course, who were responsible for the social department in family affairs. Dutiful, compliant Re- becca repeated the suggestion, upstairs. " We ought to go and see Mrs. Rockwood, Joanna." " Dear me ! and her third boy ! I can't. I never know what to say to people in affliction. Besides, we should have to admire the baby. People are always astonished if you 're not fond of THE DAIRY FARM. 57 babies — and peaches. But they do come so done up in flan- nel ! " " Dear Joanna," said Rebecca, laughing, " don't be absurd. It will seem unkind if we don't go soon. As if we took no interest." " Well, maybe we don't; just at this moment, at least. Per- haps, another day, we should. But people take for granted that we 're interested all the time, and we pretend we are. And so we have to act up to it, whether or no, and hate it accordingly. The world's absurd. And, oh, dear ! it's so full of other folks! " Here is where we took Joanna up. Bebecca said nothing for a moment. Dear and intimate as the sisters were, it was sometimes a puzzle for one to comprehend the other. Joanna's moods might mean nothing but absurdity and waywardness, or they might cover feeling that called for a deep sympathy. Bebecca could not tell. On points of feeling, Joanna never would be voluntarily communicative. To her, strong- thoughted, secret-hearted, masked with an impervious whimsicality that few would know how to approach with earnestness, the world would be likely, all her life, to seem filled only with "other folks." Bebecca brought, presently, an open book, and laid it on the window-sill before her sister. These words were marked upon the page. _" As Thou, Father, art in me, and I in Thee, that they, also, may be one in us." • " That is how it ought to be," she said. " And just how it always isn't," said Joanna, leaning her head upon her right hand, with the searching look in her eyes of one striving to s61ve a problem, and gently pushing the Bible from her, with her left. " And these pretences only hinder it." " They ought not to be pretences. Wherever there are Chris- tians, there should be Christian love and sympathy, should n't there ? " " It 's.no use to talk in the potential mood. The present indic- ative contradicts it flatly. At least, among the Hilbury Chris- tians. Take Mrs. Prouty. That woman aggravates me so, with her perfections ! Why, the rest of the world, you 'd think, was only made to be an offset to her righteousness. She 's so faithful among the faithless, and always in such a small way ! She darns her stockings — Wednesday nights — on the right side; and it is n't evangelical to darn them on the wrong. And not to get the clothes dried Monday, when her wash is over, is nothing less than Anti-Christ. It's mint, anise, and cummin, — gnats and needles' eyes. There is n't any room for Christian sympathy. And then look at Mrs. Fairbrother ; with her whining ways and beautiful 58 THE GATWOETHYS. submission to her troubles and " chastcnings." Other people are chastened too, I suppose. But she believes Providence keeps a special rod in pickle for her, and does n't do -much else of impor- tance but discipline and pity her. I 'm tired of going about among such people." Rebecca Stood, now, at the toilet, brushing out the soft, delicate cloud of her dark hair. She folded it back from her face, and wound it into the usual simple knot behind, keeping*silence, wait- ing for the querulous mood to pass. Joanna sat, listlessly pluck- ing leaves and cherries, through the window ; biting either, as it happened, indifferently. Presently, she roused and turned. " I 'm cross, Becsie, I know: and wicked. But it seems some- times as if the world were all Wrong. We must do something, I suppose. TheTe are those books Jane left to be taken over to AVealthy. She always manages to leave that for us. Let 's take the children, and walk over. If anybody, but you, can set me straight when I 'm crooked, it 's Wealthy Hoogs. She 's real, and strong." " Wealthy, healthy, and wise," assented Bebecca, playfully. " I don't know about the wise. What did she marry Jaazaniah for?" Down on the rock, under the pleasant shade of the .plum-tree, two other little lives were getting, in their separate fashion, what- ever the world had for them, to-day Say had set her doll upon a moss throne, in a high cleft, and crowned her with golden but- tercups, and built a bower of asparagus plumes about her, and put in her hand a peeled willofr twig, for a wand. This was her fairy queen of the grotto. And, mutely, lest Gershom should wake to consciousness of what she was about, and ridicule her, she was performing her favorite fairy tale of the Immortal Foun- tain. The asparagus, tossing its feathers of green, — the beans, winding their scarlet blossoms around the tall poles, — the grow- ing corn, standing in stately rows, putting forth, its young tas- sels, — these, filling with their ^anks the long garden upon one side, were the fairy troop3 she essayed, according to the story, successively, to pass. The Immot tal Pouintain was supposed to be hidden in the vine-covered Summer-house at the farther end. Gershom, outstretched upon his .back, lay utterly heedless of it all. He was rounding the Horn, in the forecastle of the Pil- grim. Say came back to her fairy queen, after a breeze had swept the corn-patch, and refused her passage by the crossing of its blades. Gershom at the end of the chapter, flung down the book, and came back, also, from fair Pacific seas. THE DAIKY FARM. 59 " I 've never seen anything but Hilbury rooks," he cried. "Say ! how does the sea look ? Come and tell me." According to the spirit of the story, the corn-fairies should un- hesitatingly have lowered their green blades, the next time, on Say's approach ; so readily did she abandon her pantomime at the boy's call. " The sea ? Why, down at the wharf, where the Pearl comes in, it's black and dirty ; and .you 're afraid all the time of fall- ing in. But up on Harbor Hill, where papa takes me to walk sometimes, it looks wide and blue, and sparkles, way off, up against the edge of the sky. And you can see the vessels sailing. But I think it 's prettier here." "Poh! that's because you're a girl. I'm tired of hills and trees. I want to see the sea. And I mean to, sometime." "Well, you're coming to Selport to see us, you know. And then, when the Pearl comes in, we'll go down to the wharf, and get oranges and pineapples." " I don't care for the oranges. But I want to see the ship, and the captain, and the sailors." " Well, they '11 be there. And we oan sit in the cabin." _ " I shall go up the masts. To the very top." » "No, indeed! You'll fall" " I shan't do any such thing. Can't I climb a tree ? I brought home a crow's nest, last sprifig, off the top of a pine, higher than any mast. " I wonder if grandpa '11 let me go ? " " Of course he will. I '11 ask him." And Say skipped away, past the green fairies, and the scarlet fairies, and between the whispering corn- blades, triumphantly, and up to the golden sunflowers, that shook their radiant heads at her, and sent her back. She took up Gershom's book. " That is n't pretty," she said, " ' The Swiss Family Bobinson ' is nice* Mamma reads it to me. And live got a story in my Girls Own Book, about a little boy and girl that went away to sea in a ship, and got lost among the savages." There was ample present provision for Gershom's newly awak- ened craving. Aunt Jane had; made her selections well. Yet, who could blame her, if the boy, like all boys, should- grow rest- less, and feel a longing to see the world? Aunt Bcbecca, with her dainty white sunbonnet and large green, parasol, came down the garden path and announced to the children the plan for the afternoon. A walk to cousin Wealthy's was the crown and acme of Hilbury delights to Say. Evea Gershom, after a little balancing,- let himself, incline to the single 60 THE GAYWOKTHYS. thing that could have persuaded him away from his sea-story. Yet Say, after all, of the whole party, was the only one to whom came, unalloyed, the perfect joy of the golden summer, that day, among the hills. Around by the high-road, it was a long, toilsome, unsheltered walk to Wealthy Hoogs's. The way they took, — down Harts- home's lane, through the wild, ferny pasture, out by the pond side, and around its margin, to the opposite slopes, up which a wood- path led them to Jaazaniah's hillside farm, — this was purely fair and fragrant, green and still. Joanna kept her face very straightforward, and her parasol lowered carefully against the side that was not sunny, as they passed down the lane.; divining, somehow, without directly look- ing, that it was Gabriel who sto.od high up on the loaded hay-rig- ging out there at the left, pitching its perfumed freight, in mighty trusses, through the great barn-window. The footsteps of the sisters fell noiseless ; but the children leaped, and laughed, and shouted. Gabriel never turned. After they had well gone by, he paused, though, and took breath, leaning upon his fork ; his face toward the way that they had followed. Then he glanced round, westwardly, and raised his hand toward the sun ; and then set himself, with more stalwart strain then ever, to his work again. m Down in the edge of the pasture, the Gayworthys met Mrs. Hartshorne, among the raspberry bushes. " "Well, now, I declare ! You haint called in and missed me, have you? You've been as scarce, lately, as eggs in January. I was telling father, last night, that I 'had n't laid eyes on one of you, except at meeting, since Miss Gair went. And — speaking of meeting — I guess I 've got some news for you. Parson Fairbrother was in, a minute, this morning ; and what do you think he says ?" " Stacy Lawton ! s 'found a hope,.' I suppose." " How came you to guess, right off ? " " I thought she 'd been looking for it." " Well, yes, the Parson says she 's been in a very interesting state of mind for some weeks ; and he 's very much encouraged. He thinks there 's an increasing seriousness among the young people. But that is n't all ; though, to be sure, that 's what we ought to care the most about ;" and Mrs. Hartshorne's round, cheery face length- ened a little, duly, for an instant, as she spoke, but sprang back to its jolly lines, by irresistible native elasticity, and lightened with a simple, womanly sympathy and delight as she went on. "There's more coming of it. Only it isn't to be talked of quite yet, and so you must n't tell. But it looks as if there was work ready-laid out for her, and he as good as said so. I shan't mention any names." THE DAIRY FARM. 61 " no. It is n't worth while.- It 's been pretty plain that there was one thing depending on another." " So, she 's made sure of him 1 I knew she would, before she quite committed herself. And that 's religion ! with some people. I know yours, Beosie, is a better |ort." It was, and it needed to be. Joanna said the last words as she left Mrs. Hartshorne and joined her sister, who had moved forward, and was disentangling Say's dress from the raspberry stems, among which the child had plunged, eagerly, after the fruit. .Rebecca had had an instant's time. It is all we need, at some crises, for hiding away our secrets between ourselves and Heaven. Her sweet face was, apparently, unchanged, as she turned, now, toward Joanna. " We must not judge," said she. " And perhaps she has only had given her just what she needs to keep her fixed. God takes different ways." And so they passed on ; their feet following the same track ; yet one of the twain, from that moment, entering, silently, without human sign, a path marked for her only. God's way. One taken, and the other left. How long ? , They came down to the edge of the great pond. Away off, east- wardly and southwardly, it swept, shaping itself among the hills, its limit untraceable except just here about them. A light rippling line whispered up the mimic beach, — the hill they had just come down lay behind them against the southwest sky, and the birches and alders that fringed its base, shaded the calm water and its pebbly margin. They always satdown here to rest. It was a won- derful stillness. Nothing moved but the lazy-lapping water, and the tremulous birch leaves, and the little sandpiper that scampered along the wave-mark. Even the children could not begin at once to play. They sat down upon the pebbles, and dipped up water in their palms to drink. Gershom, his mind stirred with new thoughts, looked out upon the shining expanse and upon the blue distant hills that shut it in, and wondered with himself where in the world was room left for the great sea. The sisters talked no more. Each soul went its own way in the quietness. Only Say was supremely happy, with the water and the sky and the white clouds sailing about in both. Only Say had not come yet to look further than things visible, as, except from her fairy lore, she peopled the scene itself. Well, that was all. They sat and rested there. And after fif- teen minutes they got up and went on their way ; and neither one 6 62 THE GAYWOETHTS. knew what lines, in those few moments, life might have written for another. They went half a mile around, to where a pasture-path led up again — more rocky and shaded this time — along the unfenced hillside of the Hoogs's dairy-farm. Away up here, apart from all neighborhoods the little red house built against a steep of granite, lived Cousin Wealthy. Between summer and winter — between churn and spinning-wheel — her life vibrated. Her husband Jaazaniah, lived here too, of course. Whatever may be to be said about him will say itself. If Wealthy Hoogs, " hungry for books," full of keen thought, energetic to a pre-eminence even among Yankee notables, had lived the high- pressure life of modern society, — if her Yankee " smartness " had taken a purely aesthetic turn, — which having never happened was no less a mercy to herself, perhaps, than to Jaazaniah, she might have discovered, as so many gifted beings seem destined to do, that there was something unresponsive in her sphere, that she had not found, — I am half ashamed to use the word, — her " affinity ;" that she was a mismatched, misplaced woman. Apparently, she was ; yet she comprehended nothing of this jargon ; she had, seem- ingly, poor creature, never found it out ; she lived here simply, where she had been put ; made and packed her butter, wove her homespun, and loved faithfully, — and forbcaringly, for the most part, — were it praise worth a woman's having to say more ? the man whose name and home she shared. If Wealthy Hoogs could have been spirited from her secluded mountain home, and set down bodily in a "cultivated circle," — face to face even with such a one as soul to soul stood secretly her counterpart, — I think neither one nor the other of them, nor any among the congenial spirits near, who through fleshly eyes should behold her apparition, would at once have recognized the kin. Perhaps, for the strengthening and consolation of "mis- placed " existence, in whatever sphere, the same conclusion might, in its behalf, be safely reached. It is quite possible that He who sets answering souls apart, shrouding them from each other's ken with unlike exteriors of form and phase, and joins by circum- stance them of less correspondent mould, knows most clearly the fitness of His own work, and the fulness of His times. Wealthy was a spare, " long-favored" woman. Her pale hair grew high upon her forehead, and could only be adjusted in the straightest of straight lines. Her rather small gray eyes were set in close neighborhood on either side the thin-bridged nose. This perhaps added, in effect, to the wonderful keenness of their glanoe. They pierced you with their intensity. They Beemed THE DAIKT FARM. 63 always penetrating through things and people, to Artesian depths-, searching after that she thirsted for. Sailors, they say, who daily strain their vision to the very earth- verge, come to attain a marvel- lous long-sightedness. Peering out, from her remote isolation, through such avenues of thought as opened themselves toward the world of things and thoughts that lay like a dream in the dis- tance, reaching her spiritual treasures from afar, — she grew to place all whereon she looked instinctively, as it were, at long range and focus. So she got into her face the expression that people say, " looks through you." " There 's a great deal besides common smartness in Wealthy Hoogs," said her town's-folk. " And how on earth," it was not sel- dom added, with Yankee significance of incompleteness, " she ever came to take up with that Jaazaniah." They found her to-day, on the little square, open platform, that, by way of stoop, was built against the angle of the house, under the shade of a great oak. She had a broad wooden tray upon her lap, in which she was cutting up a pui>e white mass of cheese-cufd. Jaazaniah sat by ; his chair — one useless fore-leg gone — tilted up against the red shingles. He whittled a stick, and whistled. It would be time, presently, to go after the " caows." That duty impending absolved the interval of time. Wealthy chopped on, following her own solitary thoughts, feeling a certain habitual comfort of having him at her elbow. Voices first, and then heads, coming suddenly in view up the abrupt path, brought the visitors to their knowledge. Then there was voluble country welcome, and " laying off things." Say was made free of the curd-trough, and pecked away, eagerly, at the dainty white bits, like a bird lit in a seeded field. " It 's kind of an extra job, to-day, this cheese," explained Wealthy. " I don't mostly keep such work about into the after- noon. But I took a notion to set it after I 'd got my butter out o' my hands. We had a famous churning, did n't we, Jez ? " " Eleven pounds, and jest asyaller as gold. Guess 'twould do ye good to see the pats," said Jaazaniah, complacently. Lucky ye eome -to-day, for Wealthy 'n me's goin' down to Winthorpe to-morrow, with sixty weight." "Come in," says Wealthy, proud of her dairy, and especially of this new churning, as a brain-worker might be of a last successful poem. " It 'a Linebaek's cream ; and you would n't think she 'd ate anything but buttercups." " If Wealthy' s dairy was not poetry, it was very near it. Right up against the solid cool cliff, that formed one wall, — looking out, by its single-shaded window, upon a rare panorama of hill, 64 THE GAYWORTHYS. pasture, and meadow, with the gleaming pond stretched far below, — redolent with a mingling of the cool mountain smell of rock and moss, and the fragrance of churned cowslips and clover, that had given up their essence into the golden rolls and pats that were ranged on shelf, or stored in boxes, — musical with the gurgle and plash of spring- water, that came in by a cleverly fixed spout, and flowed constantly through the large shallow, wooden recep- tacle wherein Wealthy worked and moulded, — there was such breath of purity, such suggestion of all delight of life and growth that culminated here, as no written word can give the feeling of. Say drew long breaths as she entered. "I should like to live here," she said. " I '11 keep you," answered Wealthy Hoogs, with one of her long, asking looks. Say thought it sharp, and shrank away, half changing her mind. In this little hillside home there had never been a child. " We 've brought some books that Jane left for you," said Jo- anna. " She would have c9tne up, but she had n't time. And it's been so very hot." " I know it has. This is the first comfortable breezy day for most a fortnight. And I 'm thoroughly qbliged v It 's a great thing to get a book up here. Specially, when the winter nights come on." " There's something among them — a book of traveller's sto- ries — that we thought Jaazaniah might like." " Maybe he will. But he never took no great to readin' ; more 'n a chapter in the Bible of a Sunday, or the newspaper once a week, or the Almanac. Sometimes I wish 't he would. It seems like goin' off and leavin' him all alone, when he sits here, and I get into a book. I 'm clear lost for awhile, that 's a fact. But then he 's always glad to see me back again, and that 's one good of goin' away, however you do it." " Don't you ever read aloud to him ? " "Well, I used to try that, now and then. But it didn't do much good. I had to keep nudgin' him up all the time, or he 'd be sure to go .to sleep. He aint one of the sort that can stand bein' read to. We aint much alike in some things, and I suppose it isn't best to be. He 's just as clever as the day is long ; and you know that as well as I do." Wealthy finished her sentence with a certain sudden, short de- fiance, as if she thrust down, with averted mental vision, some buried-alive thought that lifted itself now and then. " If he got lost, as I do, there 'd be no knowing when we should ever come across one another again. But he 's a kind of anchor for me. He 's always right there, and I know just where to find him." THE DAIRY FARM. 65 With this bit of wifely philosophy, Wealthy led the way out again, toward the house front, where Jaazaniah whittled and whistled still, with interjeotional sentences of conversation with Gershom, and glances at the descending afternoon sun. " You might think, to see him sittin' there, that he was lazy. His mother used to tell him he was. But I know better. He 's busy thinkin'. He is n't one that tells his thoughts much ; but they come out, once in a while, in a way that would surprise you. And you ought to sec him at, a thing, when he once gets a going. He 's slow to begin, that's all. Come, Jez, make haste and get the cows home, and the milkin' done, while I get this cheese into the press. The folks '11 stay to supper, of course. And then, Jez, what if you take the boat and row the children across the pond ?" " Jest what I was a thinkin' of," responded Jaazaniah, slowly, shutting up his jack-knife, and coming down, skilfully, on the one forward leg of his chair. " I told you so," said Wealthy, triumphantly, as he moved away. " He always gets ahead of me, after all 's said and done. I 've got into the way of always feelin' a kind of care of him, and remindin' him of things ; but, half the time, there aint really any need of it. I suppose it 's partly because his mother's memory grew so short in her last days, and I had to look after her consid- erable ; and when anybody's been used to doin', — no matter what it is, — they can't shake off the habit very easy. — Do you know what I think of every time I look at that old apple-tree, over there on the knoll ? I do have curious thoughts about things sometimes. Well, it seems to me it 's just like the cares people have laid • upon 'em, and by and by get so 's't they can't do without 'em. You see it grows right out from under a rock that happened to lay just there, and nobody ever moved it away. In the first of it, I suppose, it was a pretty hard chance. But it crept round, and climbed up, at last, into a tree. And now just look how the rock over its roots keeps it balanced ! Why, if anybody should pry up that stone now, and heave it away, you can see, by the cant of the whole trunk, that it would n't hold itself up a minute ! — And here I am, stand- ing, moralizing, with the cheese-tray in my hands," she cried, inter- rupting herself. "It 's clear I want something to hold me down ! " It was pretty clearly suggested to the minds of her listeners how this want of hers had been permanently provided for, as slow- moving, literal Jaazaniah came out of the dairy, his arms strung with milk pails, and took his plodding way down the path toward the barnyard, wrinkling his brows in the level-glancing afternoon sunlight, with never an apparent out-glancing of any light within, Mpdled of all those heavenly shafts illumined. 66 THE GAYWOKTHYS. " We all get that, one way or another, I suppose," said Eo- Ibeoca, thoughtfully. " It's well when we can see the good." " All the same," said Joanna, quickly, "-1 can't help wanting - to give the rock a hoist. And I think in the beginning, some- body ought to have done it. At any rate, people need n't plant them- selves in that fashion. — You're just buried alive here, Wealthy Hoogs, and I can't help saying so. Nobody to speak to month in and month out, except Jaazaniah, and he won't talk back." " Maybe I like that best, when I get a going," replied Wealthy, with a touch of quiet humor. " Besides, there 's more in folks than what gets said. There 's all sorts of hindrances ; things don't always seem to correspond. It's just as it is with children. They want to say great grown-up words sometimes, but they don't dare. When I was four years old, I told my mother once, that I wished I was fifteen, so's't I could say 'probable.' Clo'es is considerable. If Jaazaniah ever docs come out more than ordi- nary, it 's on a Sunday, when he 's dressed and shaved, and gets the rough off a little. I don't doubt, if he wore a black suit every day, and kep' his hands clean, and his chin smooth, like a minis- ter, he might talk like one. He 's got a soul, and thoughts. It comes out in his whistlin'. He could n't make such music as he does, out of nothin'. You never heard it, nor nobody else, as I have. Why, when we 're sittin' here, all alone, sometimes, as we were just now, before you come along, he '11 go on so, that I hold my breath for fear of stoppin' him. It 's like all the Psalms and Eevelations to listen to it. There 's something between us then, that 's more than talk. — No, I don't care what folks think about it ; nor I don't care whether it ever comes out any plainer as long as we both live ; but I know I was no fool in takin' Jaazaniah. The rough '11 come off sometime, — over Jordan if it don't here, — and then, all I 'm afraid of is, whether or no I shall make out to keep up with him." If you have n't cared for this little passing glimpse at Wealthy Hoogs's life, inner and outer, it has been very easy for you to skip it ; but, however it may be with this, my poor presentment, if she had come to you as an episode in your own actual experience, I am very sure you would have done no such thing. The tea-drinking was such as could only have been had in just that spot,_ and from just those simply hospitable hands. The sun was lowering slowly to the* horizon, lessened everywhere, in those regions, by the multitudinous hills, — when Jaazaniah helped the children and Aunt Eebecca carefully into his little boat, and put off from the shore at the foot of the descent. Joanna refused to go. She would rather, she said, walk round the head of tfc THE DAIRY FAEM. 67 pond, in the twilight ; and there was n't room to take all. safely. They would n't get across before she should come. They meant to have a row up the bend, first Joanna Gayworthy had a battle to fight, — after her own fash- ion. She must have it out with herself, and she must be left alone to do it She wanted to stand up, face to face, with this great blank future that opened itself out before her, and see what its emptiness was like, and grapple with its phantoms, and put them down, once for all, if it might be. There is a point we each come to, once, — and Joanna, whether she understood it or not, had reached it, — when a woman's life rounds itself out about her as the firmament, and in like manner resolves itself to her vision. One sun, — the rest a thronging hud- dle in a far ecliptic. Her sun had hidden itself below the hori- zon. Night was teaching her the secret of her day. Until Kate Purcell and her brother had come to Deepwater, there had never been a thought of doubt or loss to prompt her to look up and dis- cover whence her daylight came. It lessened, all at once ; she turned her back upon it, and could find nothing in the whole wide ■horizon, suddenly, but sharp-eyed, impertinent little far-off, self-sphered stars. Gabriel Hartshorne had come no nearer than the garden fence, on some farm erraiid, since the Sunday I have told you of. Jo* anna was fractious and unreasonable ; nobody knew why, — her- self least of all, perhaps ; nothing was worth while ; the world was full of " other folks." She had longed to get off/ alone, somewhere ; there had been no chance for it ; Mrs. Gair's stay, her departure, the hundred little put-off things that had to be done to bring the family back into the ordinary grooves again, — all had teased and prevented her till it had become unbearable. Now, she would be left. So she stood there by the water-side, as the little boat passed round the bend, Rebecca, with her calm' face turned toward her as she sat in the bow, floating away into the placid shadows, and out of sight, leaving her to the wild solitude that hushed itself around her into waiting silence. How should she know ? Ah, me ! the mute histories that run side by side ! The hearts that seem to touch, whose electric currents never blend with the spark of inmost recognition ! " I should like to know how people come to bear their lives !" — It was in this wise she began the fight. " A whole winter, shut up there, with Jaazaniah Hoogs! Ten, twenty, sixty winters, perhaps ! — " Joanna gave a little gasping scream, to herself, at the imagination. "And there's Pruel And Jane isn't much 68 THE GAYWORTHYS. better, whatever she supposes. — And I wonder what I 'm coming to ! — I shall have Beesie for awhile, maybe, — she 's all I "ve got, — and then — somehow — she'll slip away from me, as she did just now ; she-'s too good for us, I'm afraid ; or perhaps some prowling missionary will come along, as they do in the memoirs, and carry her off to the tigers and anacondas. And then I shall take care of father ; but I can't keep him forever ; and Gershie '11 grow up, and go away, and Prue '11 go after him ; and I 'm tough, and I shall live through it all, and grow fat, — that 'e what it turns to with people like me, — and nobody '11 really know anything about it, or care for me ; — and I shall just be ' old Miss Gayworthy ' for forty years after I shall wish I was dead and gone ! — Well ! the world must always be full of other folks, I suppose ; and I shall be one of ' em, — that' s all ! " And with this she hardened her heart fiercely against herself, and walked on ; punching great holes in the gravelly path with the stick of her parasol, and supposing that so, since she no longer worded them mentally, she put down thoughts. But they kept seething, confusedly, — the something in her short past, that she would not look at or acknowledge, except as she did it once, to her own sudden surprise, in the involuntary exclamation, " I wish I could just be angry enough not to care ! " mingling and alternating with the dreary touches imagination laid upon that picture of the coming years. By and by — she hardly knew it — the harsh, wild fancies began to soften ; a furtive, unshaped suggestion crept in among them, that other lives too must go on ; that there would always be some- thing to know, and to think of, and to care for, if she pleased, however secretly ; to be true to, however hopelessly. That lines not identical might yet run a groat way parallel ; that it would be hard if they should never cross or coincide ; that people bom into this world contemporaneously, could n't get off the planet, or. into another generation; that, set at first in propinquity with like local ties and interests, they would scarcely drift away from each other into utter incognizance and separation ; that they might, even, grow old before each others' eyes, and in a comfortable friend- liness ; and that she should n't very much mind being " old Miss Gayworthy " if only , and just then her thoughts took definite form, and flashed off to Deepwater ; and she " did n't believe there was anything in that Puree* story ; they were all off, now, and nothing seemed to have come of it. But why did n't Gabriel so much as turn his head to-day ? " She knew he had n't, for she had heard the whish of every truss of hay that he had thrust in, without pause, at the barn-chamber window, until they had got THE DAIRY FARM.. o9 round where ho could n't see ; and hero she caught herself up indignantly, and leaped to her feet from the fallen log whereon, at the turn of the path, she had seated herself mechanically, won- dering how ever she had come round to thai again. Just then a little boat — not Jaazaniah's — came up to view along the opposite shore, and veered this way. I said she was at the turn of the path. Here, the bank became abrupt and broken, and the shore-path ended for a space. A little track bent off into the woods, and followed the curve around the head of the pond, which leaned itself coquettishly this side, — touching again, farther on, the strip of pebbly beach, and there offering choice of road, — by shore or on, within the fringe of wood, to the point where they had first struck the pond, this afternoon, at the foot of Farmer Hartshorne's pasture. Joanna gave a flashing glance at boat and oarsman, sweeping, with vigorous stroke, toward her. " Does he think, I wonder, I shall stand here for him to come and fetch me?" And the light muslin dress, that against the green had been an unwitting signal for his guidance, vanished from the rower's sight among the trees. Quick as thought the boat's bow turned. It was a race. If Joanna could only get past the turning first ! But the little feet that hurried so along the mossy way, stood but small chance against the lusty sweep of oars that shpt the light craft with such rapid impulse, along the inner line, toward the point of meeting. She could catch frequent glimpses out between the trees, and note its progress. She could measure odds, and she knew that she was worsted. That he must know it, too, and that to lea.ve the path, and to dash away into the woods, as for an instant she felt temp- tation to do, would not only cause great uneasiness to her sister, but would be to those other eyes absurd and manifest flight. Since there was no help for it, then, she would keep her dignity, at least. So she walked slowly, again, — very slowly, — and gathered breath ; and came out, leisurely enough at last, upon the narrow beach where Gabriel Hartshorne sat waiting in his boat, and con- fronted him, as one who knew no cause for shrinking. The young man sprang ashore. " I was determined to find you, Joanna. I had something to say. I should have been glad to have rowed you over." " I wanted the walk, thank you. And now I must make haste, for I have been longer than I meant, and I daresay the others have crossed the pond below." " No," answered Gabriel. " The children were getting lilies in the bend when I came up." 70 THE GAYWOKTHYS. He had lain about upon the water, watching, a full hour past, for the poor reward of these five minutes. He would not have them shortened, now. Joanna walked on, replying nothing. " You 're offended, Joanna, and I suppose I can guess why. But there has n't been any reason. I can't explain everything. If I could " " I am sure I would n't give you the trouble. I don't know why I should be supposed to be offended : and I certainly can't pretend to call you to account." g What strange, wayward words rush to the lips when the heart is fullest ! These translated nothing of Joanna's self. Her sky was filling again with light. The whole east crimsoned with a coming joy. The impertinent stars faded out of her thought, and were forgotten. She could have sung, like a bird at dawn. And yet she answered frowardly. There was a curious delight in such very utterance. Like a child, she meant to be good in a minute ; she meant to let herself be happy ; but the last ebullitions of a relenting naughtiness, — the last throbs of an expiring pain, — there is a pleasure of perversity — a sweetness of torture — in the very prolonging of these. Gabriel answered to her words. " I wish I could show you my whole mind, this minute," said the young man, earnestly. "You wouldn't — that is, I hope not — find anything in it that would offend you. I told you I couldn't explain. Things haven't gone, lately, quite as they used to, between us. I only want to ask you to believe it is n't my fault. We 've always been good friends, have n't we, Joanna ? " That nearly spoiled the whole. A little while ago, compound- ing meekly with fate, Joanna could have borne to be " old Miss Gayworthy," for a certain comfortable friendliness that might still be hers ; now, was this all ? Had he pursued her so, to say only this ? That he would like to say something better, if he could ? Joanna felt inclined to be rather more indignant than ever. Spite of her capricious flight, the great solitude wherein she sat and dreamed had been so blithely broken by the coming of his boat 1 Such a thrill re- called her to the present, — sueh a nameless hope stirred sud- denly,— and over the hard, lonely years she had looked out on, fell such a happy mist, once more, shutting her back into her youth again ! The first words, too, tbqt had infringed, with a manly wilful- ness, the silence that had lain between them, giving her a safe THE DAIRY FARM. 71 feeling in her own little petulance, that might be indulged, since, without humiliation to herself, it should presently be overborne, — meant they nothing more than this ? She felt very like the child, who discovers, after His naughti- ness, that he may be as good as he pleases, yet it chiefly concerns himself: the world is to go on very much as it has always done before. He only wanted to be friends, then. " Of course, " she answered, coldly. " There's no need to make a special talk about it. — When are you going to Winthorpe ? " " To study ? I don't know. I'm afraid all that is put off for some time. Father seems to need me at home. Things don't look altogether clear, ahead. I may have to give up the law, after all, and stick to the farm." "There they are, — coming round the point They did cross below. We must make haste and meet them. It is getting late." " Joanna !." exclaimed Gabriel, suddenly, placing himself be- fore her in the narrow path, — "if it was fair and right to ask — as things are — I would ask you — ." It was a blundering beginning ; but he would have blundered on, blessedly, if she had let him; which of course she didn't. "Better not!" she interposed, hurriedly; putting a full stop, so, after this, his third dash. Don't you remember what we used to say at school, when we opened our noon-baskets ? ' Those that ask, shan't have ; those that don't ask, don't want ? ' It always makes me contrary-minded, when folks come asking things ! " She put one foot on a great stone that lay in the water, and sprang past him, keeping on her way. He could but follow. " It 's clear she means to hold me off," was his thought. " What in the world did he begin with a capital IF for? " was hers. "And why should n't it be ' fair and right,' — unless he 's gone and made it wrong ? " Thrums again. This thread broke. Many things were to happen afterward to prevent its. joining. But how should Joanna know that ? She went home gayer hearted than for long It would come right, somehow ; she did not truly believe there was anything wrong, despite her captious coquetry. He would begin again, sometime ; before long ; without the capital IF; and say his lesson better. There was a little quick restlessness in her manner, as she sat and chatted with Prue and the doctor, taking their tea together. She sang as she washed up the cups and plates, after- 72 THE GAYW0RTHY8. ward; when that was done, she sang softly, still to herself, standing out by the doorstone in the great maple shade* Rebecca complained that the sun had given her a headache, and betoolr*herself quietly, with her pain, to bed. CHAPTER VIL WATCHING AND WAITING. After that, for days and days, Joanna watched and waited. Not visibly. Hardly consciously. She never stood looking out of doors and windows, to see if anybody were coming. She omitted nothing of her ordinary share of household duties. She took care of Say; put on her long-sleeved tyers when she sent her out to play; changed her stockings when she came in with wet feet, from playing by the brook ; told her stories ; went down to the orchard with her, to pick up red, spicy summer apples ; filled every moment of her time more busily even than her wont, with successive small objects and employments ; never paused to think what it was that she expected, or that she expected anything ; yet, each day, put some slight freshness of decoration to her simple summer-afternoon toilet, thinking, away down secretly in the heart that turned a deaf ignoring to its own whispers, — " To- night, to-night ! surely; he will come ! " She could not think he would let it all end here. That he had taken her little flippancy for final answer to the question not yet fairly asked. She avoided with marvellous ingenuity any little plan of Walk or visit, that should appropriate those after-tea, twilight hours, when, nothing else occupying the time, they were accus- tomed to gather about the great open front-door, that faced down a grass-walk of some ten or twelve yards' length, to the white gate in the garden fence. Through this white gate, often, neigh- bors came, strolling in to spend a leisure half-hour. Down the green vista Joanna gazed as the shadows deepened, night after night, — sometimes left sitting there alone, — in an unconfessed expectation of a coming fate. And night after night the katy- dids sang in the maples, and the long summer twilight faded away, and the dews grew chill, and a dull soreness gathered and spread about her heart, and what she looked for came not. Everything else that could come, came, at one time or another, 7 74 THE GAYWORTIITS. startling her with successive shocks of certainty and disappoint- ment, as the little gate swung, clattering, after each entrance, and figures, that might at first glimpse be anybody's, moved up out of the shadow of the great trees. The minister dropped in for a minute with revival news; a farmer's wife had a word for Prue ; village girls came, laughing and chatting, and stayed, and chattered on, till Joanna could have shrieked at them ; little boys after the doctor ; and then everybody, at last, in all Hilbury, was safe at home for the night ; and Prue was locking up, and Ee- becca's gentle voice called her remonstratingly in, out of the dampness ; and the katy-dids were shriller and more insulting than ever ; and the starch was all out of her pretty muslin dress ; and that day's hope was over. Porty rods or less away, down the road, at the Hartshorne farm-house, somebody else spent those same twilight hours, think- ing and brooding, expecting nothing. Porty rods, at most, long measure ; what had that to do with it ? There was a space widening between these two not measurable by roods. One night the doctor came in late to tea, — with something very evidently on his mind. He had been to the village at the Bridge. " Prue," he asked, suddenly, "have you. seen anything of Hartshorne's folks for a week or two back 1 Seems to me I haven't." " Why, no," says Prue. " Not to speak of. And it's a little singular, too. I suppose Mrs. Hartshorne gets pretty well tired out with all the work she has, in haying-time, and we 've been busy. But I can't think what 's come of Gabe. He 's rather left us off, lately, I must say." " There 's something wrong there, Prue ! " Joanna started up from the table, — all but the doctor had long finished the meal, — and hastened suddenly out after Say, who had run off, in her clean stockings and pantalets, to sail chips in the horse-trough. " They say down at Barstow's that the old man grows queerer everyday. He drives down and buys odd things in ridiculous quantities ; things he can't possibly have any use for ; and perhaps Gabriel comes along afterward and brings 'em back,-with some excuse. Yesterday, there were half a dozen in there, standing round, and in comes the old man, — his otter-skin cap on, too, in the doggiest of dog-days, — and calls for < axe-heads. Six of cm. ' That's a good many,' says Barstow, not knowing exactly how to manage. 'Want any helves?' 'Didn't I say axe-foods?' WATGHING AND WAITING. 75 he snarls out, quite fierce. ' When I want anything else, I '11 ask fpr't' 'What yer goin' to set 'cm to?' says old Hines, speaking up from the corner, in his shrill way, and winking to tne others, that upside-down wink of his that takes all one side' of his face to do it. 'Hallelujah metre!' roars Hartshorne again, and then laughs. ' No more sense to him than a patridge,' says Hines, chuckling. Just here, Gabriel came in, looking hot and hurried. He shook his head at Barstow over his father's shoulder, and he turned round and waited on another customer, and presently they began to talk of something else, and then the old man seemed to forget all about it, and Gabe got him away. — He looks strange, too. If they asked me, I should tell 'em not to trust him about alone. Gabriel does seem anxious and, keeps round after him as well as he can. But the old man fires up if he notices.' ' "0 dear!" replies Prue, shocked. "I do hope he isn't going to lose his mind ! " The doctor moved his head slowly, twice, from side to side. " I ve had my thoughts before now," said he. " I hope, what- ever it is, it '11 take a quiet turn with him. It 's hard enough, anyway, on Gabriel and the old lady. — He ought n't to be irri- tated, though. It 's queer what there is in human nature that turns out Hineses. People that never had any wits to spare them- selves, always ready to egg on, and chuckle, when they see a better fellow going a bit astray. Every cur runs after and barks, when a noble-blooded mastiff gets a tin can tied to his tail. Barstow'ts is a bad place for Hartshorne." "But, father," cried Rebecca, with an eager, horrified look, " can't something be done ? Why don't you tell them ? " " Child," answered the doctor, almost impatiently, " what can I do ? it 's in the hands of God. And, next to Him, they know more than anybody else, already." The doctor finished his tea, presently, and got up and went out Joanna came in. Prue turned round upon her with the news. She stood straight up between them, growing pale, and looking from one to the other, with such an expression as she had never shown them on her face before. " I don't believe one word of it," she said, slowly, with a sort of trample in her tone. " And, you two ! don't ever you mention it again to a living soul. It 's a shame. It 's Hilbury gossip. I wonder father listens to all they say, down there at Barstow's ! " And with this, she left them and went out to the front doorstone, and sat down, alone. Gould this be why " things did n't look 76 THE GATVTOETHYS. quite clear ahead " to Gabriel ? Was this the unspoken hindrance that lay between them ? Had she from a heedless, unreasoning impulse, checked the avowal, that breaking through a harsh re- straint, was ready in that moment only, to have rushed from his lips ? Might she have given him love and comfort, that now he ■would never come to ask again ? — She laid her hands upon her knees, and her face in them, and questioned herself of these .things bitterly. By and by, her head flung itself up again, with a sudden spring. "After all, he knew I could n't have understood. And they were all olose by. There -was no time. He would n't give it up so, if he meant anything. I would n't, if I were a man ! At any rate, h.e can't keep out of the way forever." With another sudden movement, she stood up. Then, she walked restlessly down the grass-path to the gate beneath the maples. She looked up the road, down the road, in the clear, early evening light. To the top of the long, sloping hill, on one side ; to the red build- ings of the Hartshorne farm, below, upon the other. A few steps would take her there ; doubtless the old lady was wondering why some of them did not come. A month ago it would have been the most natural thing in the world to run down, and call in. Now, how impossible it had become ! She and Gabriel might as well have been "set apart on opposite ocean-shores. — Would this be so always ? Would this mysterious gulf lie between them, unknown of others, holding them asunder, all their lives ? — Might they "grow old before each other's eyes," yet miss the "comfortable friendliness ? " A man's figure came into view, moving up, in the softening and uncertain twilight. Joanna's heart beat hard. He was coming at last. And she would not be shy and cold. She would even give him opportunity. Poor fellow ! he had difficulty enough in his way, if all were true. She would be kind. She would stand still, there at the gate, — hold herself, forcibly, against her own wayward wish, — and meet him, alone. She would, — well it mattered not what she would have done. The figure drew nearer while these thoughts were flashing through her mind. " What a fool I am!" she muttered, in a whisper, angrily, between her teeth ; her hand clutching with a fierce pressure the upper bar of the white gate, as one clutches at any outward thing, to bear a horrible pain. She turned, and moved swiftly off under the screening boughs to the house- door, whence at the moment Eebecca came out. " Here comes your revival man," said she sharply. " Stay WATCHING AND WAITING. 77 and attend to him. I can't." And she ran up stairs to her own chamber, shutting herself in. The quiet enduring of some souls gets laid upon it, not only its own unstinted measure of pain, but half the burden of others' impatient suffering. Gordon King was coming to tell them of his betrothment, And Rebecca, of all the household, must stay alone and listen to his news. I think if he had known how this would chance, the young minister, clear as he might be of any falsity in word, would yet have shrunk, with a certain secret compunction, from the ordeah "I. suppose," said he, after a f6w commonplaces, "you know something, already, of what I have to tell you. I hope you arc glad for us ? " So he askei} her for congratulation. What could Eebecea say ? Her face was pale and earnest in the dim light, as she answered him in words given her surely by that Spirit who teacheth His own in each moment of their need what they shall say and what they shall speak. " I hope," she replied, slowly and solemnly, " that you may both be glad, all your lives,- and forever, in each other, — and in the Lord ! " And she stretched out her hand to him untremblingly, as an angel might. Did no secret intimation whisper to him then, in the presence of that grander, purer womanhood, of something he might have missed in grasping after a mere witchery of prettiness ? He uncovered his head, involuntarily, with one hand, as he met hers with the other, and held it fervently. For a .minute or two, he stood silent in the solemnity of such giving joy. In those instants perhaps, these two souls were nearer to each other, though they knew it not, than common souls, in common mood, can be even in the avowal and acceptance of what such call love ; nearer than either might be again, to any'other, while flesh should hold them darkling. Afterward, he said, " I hope you will see Stacy soon. A friend like you will be a strength for her. She is younger than you, spiritually. Her feet, you know, are newly set in the upward way." This almost went beyond. Something that Eebecea in her low- liness, struggled with as a motion of the old depravity, rose up within her at this demand from him. For she could not help — saint as she was — her own clear, native, common sense. Stacy was a. good two years her elder, as the world reckons. A lifetime beyond her, in that which Eebecea G-ayworthy had never lived at all. She might wish her well ; she truly did ; honestly, in her inmost soul, she prayed for her the prayer of self-forgetting faith. 7» 78 THE GAYWOKTHYS. But go to her I As slie was now ! In the fresh exultation of her double achievement, for this world and the next ! To read, and to be read, as those two woman-souls would surely decipher each other, and to utter words of spiritual sympathy and earthly con- gratulation ! What she did, she would do truly. Not this now. " Stacy has better strength than mine to lean on. Even human. She will not need me yet. If ever she does, be sure I will not fail her. Give her my good wishes." This was all ; said with a calm, pure smile. Nothing to answer, nothing that he need translate beyond the letter. Yet Gordon King knew, dimly, as he listened, that he had wronged that gra- cious nature; knew, yet more dimly, — it was a thought away back in embryo shadows of his soul, that only years might give a form wherewith to haunt him, — that he also wronged himself. This he shook off; thanked her for her friendly words ; pressed once again the hand that let itself lie passively in his ; bade her good-night ; and passed on, up over the hill, in the golden, growing starlight, to Stacy's home, where there were sweet words, and be- witching looks, and winning smiles and willing kisses waiting him. Rebecca, alone under the still heaven, as his last quick footfall came faintly back upon her ear, took up the cross that lay upon her path, and went away to God with it. CHAPTER Vm. EBEN'S COUP-D'ilTAT. Ant one who had been by chance in the shadow of fence or bush by the lonely roadside, upon a certain August morning, as Eben Hatch came riding back from errands to the blacksmith's, and at the village store and post-office at the Bridge, would have seen something funny and rather unaccountable. If Eben had been ten years old, instead of six-and-twenty, and if it had been in the previous knowledge of the looker-on that one of those per- ambulating caravans of wonders, human and zoological, that make their appearance at certain intervals in our quiet New England villages, to set all the urchins' brains a madding, and their bodies more often than otherwise upside down, and to paper, gratis, with bright, monstrous pictured placards, bar-rooms, and offices, and variety shops, had recently sojourned at the Bridge, — he might have thought he understood the secret impulse of the mysterious and comical evolutions he would have so beheld. Old Clumsy jogged on, in a mild, dignified imperturbability ; perhaps it was a virtue born of necessity, like the middle-aged propriety of some humans, under otherwise exhilarating circum- stances ; they would have been queer antics, indeed, that her old muscles could have executed ; while Eben, upon her back, the bridle dropped loosely upon her mane, an unfolded letter in his right hand, was giving vent to some unwonted internal excitement in a series of gymnastics that one would think could only have been learned in the Eing. Now with a long, wide-mouthed cachinnation, he flung himself, backward, till his shoulders all but touched the horse's croup ; then, flourishing his arms with a wild exultation, he bounded up and down in his saddle; and, presently, with a sudden "haw- haw," as if the overwhelming joke, whatever it might be, made itself abruptly palpable in a new and utterly irresistible aspect, 80 THE GAYWORTHYS. performed a " right-about face " unheard-of in cavalry tactics, and Bet his sun- buret nose in the direction of Clumsy's scraggy and wondering tail. Besting but an instant, however, in this position, he made a right-face again, bringing himself round with both legs dangling at the beast's near side ; and here, pushing his straw hat up with both hands, in one of which the letter still rustled, scratched his sun-browned locks, and with the unsubsided grin of delight yet broadening his honest face, gave enigmatic ut- terance to the conclusion of this ecstasy of inspiration — " Hooray ! That '11 do ! That '11 fetch it ! I '11 be — buttered — if it won't!" And, resuming his masculine straddle, he stuffed the missive into his trowsers' pocket, and seizing the leathern bridle, strapped Clumsy's neck therewith, rather as a mild easing-off for his own effervescent spirits, than in any hope of altering a gait sublimely unaffected by all that had foregone. When he arrived at home, having ridden in by the lane, and left his horse at the barn, Huldah was out among the " groves." You know what I mean, of course : among the lines of wet sheets and table-cloths in the clothes-yard; it being washing-day. Eben could see her stout-shod feet, and comely ankles cased in gray below the snowy drop-scenes ; and, above, her brown hair ruffled by the breeze, and a bit of flushed forehead, as she struggled with the flapping linen ; for the mountain wind was vigorous. He wisely withheld the greeting he had ready. Without any theory about it, he had got hold of this bit of practical knowledge ; a good nest-egg of everyday wisdom for a man to begin life with. Women are concentrative in their natures. They bend their force upon one point at a time, and that intensely, after the manner of a blow-pipe. Huldah, with a clothes-pin between her teeth, might give an answer from the right or wrong side, as should happen. LargOrhearted and happy-natured, she would never sharpen qr narrow to vixenishness ; yet she had the little distinctive ways of her sex, for alL So Eben looked at her as he went by, reserv- ing his fire ; and passed on into the out- room, where he found his brown bread and apple-pie and oheese put up and waiting for him in a bright tin pail ; and taking this in his hand, turned off again, marching away to his field-work, a secretly exultant man, with his coup-d'etat in his pocket. All day long it lay there, giving him. boldness and strength. For the most part. A momentary reaction would come, now and then, of a doubt that struck him like a sudden blow with the thought,'*' What if it should n't work, after all?" It was his last shot. Well, if it missed, he would know at any rate where he was, and which way tobeat retreat ; the fight would be over. eben's coup-d'etat. 81 " I 've got some nows for you, Huldy," he said, as the maiden served him with his late dinner, on his return from the distant field. She looked rosy and pretty enough, after her cos- metics of vapor and breeze, in her tidy out-room, where the clothes dried from the wash lay heaped up, white and rustling, and odor- ous of sweet cleanliness, in broad willow baskets ; her hair smoothed and a clean calico gown on, and a smiling grace of readiness upon her as she fetched the viands from the pantry ; her energy con- centred now on Eben's comfort, and secretly, upon making the most of this, their little hour of rest and companionship. " I 've got some news for you. But I guess 't '11 keep." " Not such a great while, I '11 be bound ; if it depends on you. Good or bad?" " Well, that 's as you take it. Kinder middlin'. I '11 tell yer to-night, when I come in from the chores. Hain't got time now. It 's consider'ble of a story." Huldah looked at him over one shoulder, as she went into the cheese-room. There was a sparkle of determination in his eye, and a certain air of delayed triumph about him, as he spoke, that gave her a. sudden thought of possible personal application in this story that should be coming. " He 's goin' to be more redick'lous than ever. That 's what it is. And he thinks he 's so mighty cunnin' about it. We '11 see," and Huldah sparkled too, with feminine mischief, and made a pretty bit of picture, that nobody beheld, lit with gleams from under the dark eyelashes, and from between the ruddy lips, as she laughed to herself over the great sage-cheese from which she was cutting a generous wedge. Eben ate and chuckled ; and watched Huldah in and out and round the room, as if she were a little bird on which he could put a cat's paw at any moment. Huldah hopped tamely enough, but felt her wings stealthily and kept every feather trimmed and ready for a sudden unfurling. " Concernin' whom? " she asked, abruptly, after a long pause, filled only by such pantomime. " Oh, the news ! You 're thinkin' of that yet, are ye ? Well, concernin' me, mostly. Donno 's anybody else '11 care about it. May make some difference to the Doctor. I '11 tell yer to-night. Yer '11 want me to help stretch them sheets, I 'spose ? " ' Huldah was n't quite so merry and comfortable after Eben went out, leaving her to clear up the dishes, and ruminate upon his words. " Difference to the Doctor ? " Could it be that somebody was enticing him away from his old place with higher wages? Well, if Eben could be mean enough to give in to that, he might 82 THE GAYAVORTnYS. go. There 'd be no trusting him in anything. Huldah was quite angry at this imagination. And even when she had mentally repudiated it, as impossible, the mischief came no more back to eye and lip. The mystery might be perplexing, but it was no longer funny. She was off the scent again,- and off her guard. So much the better for Eben. After sundown, when the chores were through, and the milk- strained and set away, they took up the little scene again, where they had broken it off. Huldah had been sprinkling. All the small articles lay piled in neat, white rolls upon her fair deal table, and only sheets and table-linen lay waiting in the big basket, for Eben, as he al- ways did, to help her " stretch.' ; His rough hands were scrupu- lously clean for the operation ; a weekly treat, which made Monday evening no less a blessed epoch to be looked forward to by the simple country lover, than the time-honored Sunday, when rural swains have traditional privilege to get themselves up in their best, and be, otherwise, as " redick'lous " as may please them. And he felt so strong to-night, with this foreclosure of the long mortgage he had held on Huldah 's heart, lying snugly in his pocket ! "Well, Huldy, Is 'pose yer aehin' to know?" This, as he gathered up in his hands, deftly enough for a man, the folded end of the sheet Huldah offered him, she walking off at the same time, with her own, to take her stand opposite. " Folks that are in tribulation themselves, never see how any- body else can be feelin' easy," retorted Huldah, turning about and taking, the cloth by the double corners. " Now, then, snap ! " Up went their arms, in admirable precision, each pair of hands uniting themselves, to be flung apart and downward, with a sudden jerk, and a mighty concussion of the bellying web against the air. Huldah felt her power again, and her courage with it. There was something illustrative in this little labor-pastime of theirs, — something suggestive in its likeness to their daily ways of going on, and what these were at last to come to. There must be just so many snaps, first of all ; little hearty measurements of mutual strength and dexterity ; then came the gathering up in earnest, for the " pull," when each drew away, apparently, with all force, from the other, yet talking care, the while, to hold stoutly by the good bond between, lest either failing, should so get the worst of it ; then the final folding, bringing them nearer and nearer, hand to hand, till they stood close, at last, face to face, with their shared and lightened work between them. Eben felt EBEN'S COUP-D'fiTAT. 83 the secret significance and symbolism, every Monday twilight of his life, though if the clumsy fellow had tried to put it into words, he would never assuredly, have "fetched it." " If it '11 be any relief to your mind, speak out," says Huldah, again. Snap ! " Oh, it 'a not much," rejoins Eben, his arms going up for the third time. Snap ! "Only, — " gathering up for the tug, — "I got a letter, again, this morning, from my cousin out in Illinois." A long pull, — a pull together, — and a pause ; a little twitch, maybe, of anxiety between the Jtwo hearts, as well. " And he wants me to come out there, and settle down." Another strain, as if each would tear away from the other, almost in anger ; only for the something, woven too strong, that held them bound, and that neither would let go. "And, — I've pretty much made up my mind — when the crops are all in — to go." It was time for the third pull ; but one end gave way, suddenly. Huldah's arms fell, and Eben tumbled up, ingloriously, against the cheese-room door. Must a conqueror necessarily look grand and graceful, in the actual moment of victory ? Huldah laughed ; but it was an odd little laugh, — her lips all a-quiver. They gave the third pull in silence, somewhat feebly, as must needs be ; a truer, mightier impulse counter-current to will and muscle, urging them, rather, to each other's arms. Then they began to fold. Meeting midway, the man, the victor, looked down, without a word, upon the eyes that shrouded themselves beneath proud, half-angry, trembling lids. They felt the magnet- ism, and flashed up. "All the way out there?" says she, the vanquished, with a voice of tears. "Alone?" " No, by thunder, Huldy ! Not if you '11 go with me ! " And the strong arms seized and held her. " Consider'ble of a story " had concentrated all its essence, by a heart-chemistry, into a few pungent words. The White folds fell to the floor. There was no interposition. Eben had " fetched it." A day or two after, Joanna stood in her chamber, with a new bonnet in her hand ; just sent from Selport. Pfetty enough ; but what use now ? A woman has but one use for all her thousand little fripperies ; to please the eyes she loves. Joanna fingered, idly, the ribbons. All the family had seen 84 THE GAYWORTHTS. and admired it. Now it was going back into its box. She won- dered if she should ever care to put it on. Steps came up the stairs ; Huldah showed herself, unwontedly, at the door ; her face full of something she had to say. So full, evidently, that she could not quite easily begin ; so she stood and rolled a corner of her apron. Joanna looked up, in somewhat surprised inquiry. " That 's a dreadful pretty bunnet," says Huldah ; much as if that were not the thing, either. Joanna wondered what strange fit of idleness and folly had come over the brisk and busy handmaid. " I hate to be too curious, Joanna ; " the girl resumed, a little desperately ; " but would you mind tellin' me what they ask you for such a bunnet as that, down to Selport? " " Nine dollars," replied Joanna, quietly, and marvelled again within herself, what next ? Everything else, however, seemed frightened out of Huldah's head at that amazing statement. She stood still, and looked at Joanna, with eyes that appeared as if they never would wink again. As if at least, were there any exaggeration in this, they meant to see through it first. Evidently, however, Joanna intended simply what she had said. She was busying herself with a little bend- ing of the flowers, and a little perking of the ribbons, — I suppose a woman would do this, mechanically, though she were about to lay away the finery forever, for the sake of a life-long grief be- fallen her, — and gave not a glance after her words, to note their effect. " Nine dullars ! Well, they ain't bashful, down there, be they ? Not the least mite ! " Now, Joanna did look up, and laugh. " Why, Huldah, she said, " What is it ? Did you think of sending to Selport for a bonnet ? " " Well, no, —I donno 's I did ; I was n't thinkin' decidedly of anything. Only I 'spose I might as well be pricin' things a little. I 've got to do some fixin' up before the falL You see," — she con- tinued, hesitatingly, " I never calculated to live out, all my life. I 've had a real pleasant home here, that's a fact ; an' you and Kebecca, and Mis' Vorse, an' the Doctor, has been just like my own folks to me. But everybody likes a little change of some kind, now and then ; and Ebenezer, he's got to be so redick'lous, — I don't see 's there 's any other way of pacifyin' him ; and so — I 've pretty, much made up my mind — to get married and try that awhile ! " These two brief little scenes, homely and absurd in the letter of their enactment, yet sweet and grand in spirit, with the blossom- eben's coup-d'etat. 85 ing of happy love and faithful purpose, forever the one, identical, divinely-beautiful thing in human hearts and lives, — decided and announced it all. After the crops were in, — a couple of months, or little more, hence, — Huldah and Eben were to take each other by the hand, and go. Changes were to begin at the Gayworthy farm. Who might guess what should come next? Meantime, they had their own kite to fly, now ; and there was nothing to remind them that they had ever helped to tie a bob to the tail of anybody's else. 8 CHAPTER IX. "gabriel!" Mrs. Hartshobne's plum-colored silt and muslin pelerine were laid out on the bed in the best bedroom. The ver/ cat, walking through, would have known by that, that it was Sunday morning. Old Flighty, — named in colthood, but long outgrown the corre- spondence to her title, — (don't Rose, and Lily, and Grace, — yes, even Patience, and Charity, and Comfort, and Frank, and Peter, and Felix, and Agnes, come often to outlive and belie theirs also ?) stood harnessed in the wagon, and tied to the front fence ; and Gabriel was in the garden, gathering as he always had done, since he was four years old, a Sunday nosegay for*his mother, of late pinks and sweetwilliam, and southern-wood, and ladies' delights, and bits of coriander ; when that good lady came reluctantly to the unusual conclusion that she " did n't feel hardly well enough to go to meetin', after all." • She told Gabriel so, when he came in with his accustomed little offering, and found her sitting pale, uncertain, and unready, a strange thing, indeed, for her, by the kitchen hearth. The farmer was shaving his chin by the looking-glass that tilted forward from the wall between the windows, and bore above it the common and morally appropriate country decoration, — a bunch of peacocks' feathers. Somebody always stayed in the room of late while he performed this Sunday morning operation ; and Gabriel thought at first that his mother had only thus been detained from her own " There, mother," he said cheerily, — he was always tender and cheery to her, the manly, gracious-hearted fellow, — as he and the sunshine came in together at the garden door, " here 's your posy. And you won't have much time to spare. The bell's just struck. I '11 wait here to see you off ; or drive, if yon and father like." The old man turned about quickly, as Gabriel seated himself. There was an angry, suspicious gleam in his eye. "What are ye allers waitin' round for, hey ? Who yer watchin' of? Can't I drive ma'am to meetin' s well 's anybody? " " GABK1EL ! " 87 " You and father 'd best go along without me, I guess," said Mrs. Hartshorne. •' I don't feel quite so smart as common to-daj, someRw." Then Gabriel looked anxiously in his mother's face, and noted the paleness of it He began to say that he would stay, too ; but she anticipated his words, and stopped him. " Maty Makepeace '11 be at home. I shan't want anybody else. And you'd best both go." Gabriel saw a queer look flit over his father's face ; an expres- sion as of a prisoner, who, through the inadvertence or mischance of a keeper, might perceive an opportunity before him. He had been very restless, lately, and impatient of their presence ; he had had constantly an eager, watching air, as if what he wanted were to get away. From the beginning of the alteration in him, this had been its peculiamfeaturc ; a propensity to give them the slip ; to make strange, sudden errands, and go off to distances, alone. Gabriel wondered if his mother recollected that he could not sit with his father during service, — that he would be left to himself in the great, old-fashioned pew : and how he would be likely to comport himself. The presence of others, however he might chafe at it, seemed a force that held him to his old habits of out- ward demeanor. Gabriel had found him quite wild and bewil- dered, once or twice, of late, when he had tracked him out, in his ramblings away from home. So it was with a secret apprehen- sion that he set off with him to-lay. under the compulsion of cir- cumstances, and in obedience to the wish of Ms mother. The church-be!] swung sweet and solemn on the air, as they drove along ; it seemed to pulse forth a deep calm that should reach into souls. Old Mr. Hartshome looked placidly forgetful, pres- ently, of his momentary excitement, and seemed to fall, involun- tarily, into the old Sabbath mood. Gabriel took courage. We kntiw very little, I think, how outward rights and sounds and habitudes hold us safely by their myriad fine and subtle threads. in mental poise. How the whole creation travaileth with us, and all our minutest relations are adjusted, lest a single human soul should lose its wonderful balance and consciousness, and be lost Let -as take care how we discard and break away, despising, in oar presumption, the value of that wherewith God, by His su- premely-wise ordination hath hedged and environed us. A sharp pain. — an instant's giddiness, isolating us from ordinary percep- tions, sets earth and heaven shattering and whirling to our thought A calm touch, — the glance resting on some familiar, insignificant object, — a gentle sound, — brings back the delicate equilibrium, as by electric impulse, to the disturbed and endangered 00 ■ THE GAYWQBTHYS. brain. We know not, hourly, how we are saved, or what we are saved from. It is from an instinct of the spirit which touches upori this truth rather than from any definite apprehension, that children of fine, sensitive, nervous organization dread " the dark." I hold it an outrage and a cruelty to thrust them relentlessly into this void they shrink from. The soul craves things sensible and local, whereto to anchor itself. The first gift of God to the world was light; the dearest promise of Christ is that he pre- pares a place for us. The fearful threat to the unworthy is " outer darkness ; " an apostle hath it — " the blackness of darkness for- ever." May there be, perhaps, an awful literalness in the phras- ing — a "lost soul?" Old Mr. Hartshorne rode up to the church-door, alighted and walked in, like any other of the comers. 43-abriel fastened the old horse under the shed, and went up to his seat among the singers. He noticed, as he glanced down toward the family pew, his father fidget a little with the hymn books, and then settle himself more quietly ; looking round upon his neighbors with a certain expression of simple importance and self-appreciation, suph as a child might have, sent to church, exceptionally, by himself; as if he said, " You see I am quite to be trusted." Alternating with wilfulness and petulance, and vagary, there often showed among the symptoms which Gabriel and his mother watched with the keen, silent eye "of anxious love, this touching air of half con- scious liability to go somehow wrong, and the pride of refraining. God only knows how mind, as well as soul, struggles and clings, before it goes down, borne under by some fearful influence of which He alone who permits it, can understand the might. The prayers and hymns and reading of holy words began; continued. Gabriel forgot, by and by, to be uneasy, seeing, when- ever he looked that way, hjs father quite composed, and outwardly himself. There was one beside him, though, who read his every glance ; who felt intuitively, through her secret sympathy, his fears ; who watched when he relaxed. Ah ! how Joanna Gay- worthy "was repenting there, that day, that she had not seized, when he had half offered it, the right to share his trouble, and help him in his care ! And now, it was too late. He would nev- er ask again. He had only been betrayed, as it were, into that beginning of an avowal, which he had resolved within himself, — how truly she read him now ! — must not be uttered, because he deemed it not " fair and right to ask, as things were." So men defraud women of their dearest rights ; so women must wait si- lently, in pain, nor dare to claim them ! «< GABKIEL ! " 89 The sermon began. It was a " revival discourse," preached by a stranger ; an exhortation unstinted in all the technical force and coloring of like discourses as such professedly ; sermons that in times of religious excitement, it used to be common for men gifted in that specialty to go starring about with ; starring, some of them, at least, it is to be feared, too much after the fashion of Samson's foxes ; a fearful picture of God's wrath ; tremendous warnings; all the awful imagery of Ancient Hebrew Writ, from Sinai to the final thunders of the latest prophet of that olden dis- pensation ; reiteration of the text, — " escape unto the moun- tains ;" a placing of God and man over against each other, — the One upon His Throne of Judgment, the other quaking, cowering beneath. God's Spirit was there, among the people, doubtless ; there were hearts in that assembly, touched, softened, tender, who had come up asking, humbly, secretly, for bread from heaven to feed their needs. But this man — did he not rather hurl stones among them ? There were souls awestruck, scared ; there were nerves thrilled, brains fevered, as they listened ; was there a sin- gle spirit won back into the Father's bosom ? Oh, be careful, ye who come with Law and Gospel in either hand, and on your lips cursing and blessing ; be careful how ye apportion, and mete out, and construe. It is a fearful thing to deal reckles.-ly'with the feeble minds and hesitating hearts of men ! How know ye what ye may be doing with those differently and delicately, perhaps perilously, attuned moods and vital crises of human experiences ? " Escape for your life ! Escape unto the mountains ! " The voice rang out once again, — startlingly, sonorously. A hand reached over, almost in the same moment, and laid itself with a quick pressure, on Gabriel Hartshorne's, arm. A hurried breath came with it, — "Gabriel! Your father!" The young man leaped to his feet ; gave one look below ; the pew was empty. There was a stir of heads ; a pause in the preaching, and Squire Lawton and Deacon Gibson 'were moving quickly toward the door. Gabriel sprang to the gallery stairs and rushed down. This was what had happened. The poor, misty brain that had been soothed by the Sunday bells, and by hymns and prayers, half followed, perhaps, but lifting in a dim way, his instincts to the One Strength and Safety, had felt a hot, sudden quiver at the first utterance of those detached words which the preacher had sepa- rated from their connection and chosen, for his text. They had struck upon, and chimed dangerously with the morbid prehension of his mind. The old man moved himself along the seat, to 80 90 THE GAYWOKTITTS. where the window recessed itself into the wall, and stood open, letting in the summer air. He looked out, away, upon the ever- lasting hills that framed the glowing landscape. So gazing, — his mind and fancy wandering toward their mysterious distances,— his ears took in mechanically the burning, urgent words of the sermon. He felt no religious fear ; but, as the sentences fell, they played upon that one diseased chord ; they stirred wildly, like fierce music, that physical, unreasoning impulse. He moved his head, with quick, short, furtive turns, to right and left. He watched for a moment when no eye should be upon him, he changed his place, softly, again, and seated himself in the window, with his arm upon the sill. Then he held himself innocently quiet, for some moments, with the cunning of actual, developed insanity, looking round upon the near neighbors who had noticed his move- ment, with a peculiarly open, placid expression, till they turned their eyes away, and he felt himself again alone. Close by, outside, pulling at her halter, and uttering, now and then, a quick, impatient whinny, stood Newell Gibson's fiery, half- broken young mare, harnessed to a light gig. She, too, wanted to get away. Every suggestion of word and scene, — even of animal sound and movement, at once an incentive, with its blind, brute sympathy,' and a prompting to new, wild purpose, — conspired, strangely and fatally, to quicken the old man's fast maddening fancy. He was spied upon — he was restrained. He knew he was going wrong, and he could not help himself. " Escape ? " It was just what he wanted to do. The impassioned, vehement sentences of the discourse swept on. There was a breathless hush in the old church. All eyes, save the straying eyes of children, — and, by this time, many of these were shut in sleep, — were fixed upon the speaker. He lifted his left arm, and stretched it out, right over toward those blue, shadowy peaks that filled the horizon, and the words pealed forth again. "Escape! Escape, for your life! Look not behind you, nor stay in all the plain ! Escape unto the mountain, lest ye be con- sumed ! " There was a sudden sound, — a leap outside ; people started, and turned. It was at this instant that Joanna had touched Gabriel's arm. When he reached the great outer door of the meeting-house, springing down the last six steps of the steep gallery-stairs and dashing across the vestibule, — he saw Newell Gibson's mare fling herself by, at a gallop, the light gig rocking and bounding " GABRIEL !" 91 after her, down the hill. His father sat in the frail vehicle, ereet, his gray hair floating back in the wind from his uncovered head. Gone ! — To his death ? It seemed so. Another sound of wheels came round the building. Squire Lawton and Deacon Gibson, in the Squire's open wagon. They pulled up, for an instant, as they saw Gabriel standing pale, hor- rified, uncertain for the moment, on the stone step before the door. " Will ye get in, Gabe ? " The deacon spoke with the sudden, undefined distance in his familiar address, that people assume in- stinctively toward one fearfully stricken. " We '11 do the best we can. Ton my soul, I 'm sorry for ye ! " " Gome with me," said another voice at his side. " It '11 do no harm to be a minute or two behind. — We must n't make a chase of it." Dr. Gayworthy addressed the last words to the two men in the wagon. " You 'd better take the turnpike, over to the crossing ; and drive as fast as you please. We '11 follow the old gentleman." Gabriel turned mutely, and accompanied the Doctor to his chaise. There was no word spoken between them, as they followed, along windings and descents, the headlong course of the runaway animal ; noting the tracks of her fierce hoofs that had clutched the gravel in mad leaps, and the swerving traces of the wheels, as the vehicle had swayed from side to side of the narrow country road, most marvellously escaping immediate overturn. What should they find at last ? For nearly a mile, the road, though in no part ac- tually precipitous, tended downward all the way, — no great length visible before them at any given point. Beyond this, a long ascent traced itself to clear view up the slopes of an opposite hill ; and there, presently, if it were possible that horse and vehi- cle should hold so long together, they would again catch glimpse of them. Over that hill, also, at right angles, stretched the turn- pike, crossing just beneath the brow upon the hither side. There lay the bare chance of safety. If the two who had gone that shorter way, could head the creature, slackened in her speed with taking the long hill, it might yet be well. But the still, white line lay dustily distinct against the green mountain-side, and noth- ing moved upon it yet. Something must have already happened. There was an ugly turn by the brook, and the bridge was narraw. Gabriel grew paler as they came down into the shaded hollow, still following the wild trail that must end soon, and losing sight, now, of the way beyond. Up in the meeting-house, — the momentary disturbance exter- nally composed, — the minister was closing his discourse to rest- 92 THE GAYWOETHYS. less ears that listened no longer ; and men and women waited feverishly through the short prayer and benediction, unheeding either, in the eager human interest that had laid hold of them. All the little world of Hilbury knew that half-kept secret of the Hartshorne farmhouse, now. Gabriel thought of it, even in those short instants of dread ; thought of Joanna in her seat there in the gallery ; felt, still, the touch of her hand upon his arm, and the friendly sympathy of it in his soul. He could never sit and sing there with her, again ; If his father lived, he must never leave him, now. So they kept their way down, — silent, breathless, — to where they came upon it all. The shattered gig, thrown on its side, crashed up against the handrail of the bridge, where it seemed to have been dragged and caught, — a broken shaft and splinters of the whiffle- tree, lying beyond, — some bits of torn harness, — the horse gone. This side the brook, across a decayed -log overgrown to a bank with moss and weeds, a prostrate figure, — and a gray head flung back, with closed eyes. One arm lay bent, beneath the body. Gabriel raised the poor, brain-sick, unconscious head, and held it against his breast. Kind, skilful hands moved and manipulated body and limbs ; drawing, carefully, the limp arm from its unnat- ural position. " Both bones of the fore-arm broken. And that seems all. That, and falling just here, is what has saved him." These were the first words spoken. " Saved him, — for what ? " groaned Gabriel, his long trouble speaking itself, at last, from pale, dry lips, and imploring eyes. "We'll hope," said the doctor, cheerily. "And now, I'd rather he would n't come to, till wo can get him home. He won't remember how it came about ; and that 's better. There 's the wagon." "If my mother only might n't know it all ! " cried Gabriel. She never did. CHAPTER X. ANOTHEK WEEK. Gabriel, leaning over his father's bod, heard the click of the bones as they came into place under the doctor's grasp. At the same moment, the old man opened his eyes. There was a quieter look in them, though with a vague amaze, than they had worn for long. " Where am I? "What ye doin' to me? " he asked, feebly. "You've had an accident, and hurt your arm. Lie still," replied the doctor. " An accident ? I donno nothin' about it. Wh.ere 's ma'am ? " " I 'm here," said his wife, standing on the other side. But her white face grew whiter, as she spoke, and she would have dropped, if Mary Makepeace had not held her. " She 's clear beat out ; and her head 's been bad all day, and she must go to bed, herself, this minute," said Mary Makepeace, leading, or mostly, lifting her, along. Mrs. Hartshorne yielded, in a sick dizziness that made the faces round her all turn strange, and the look of the kitchen, as she moved across it to the . little bedroom on the other side, like a place she had never been in before ; and presently the doctor stood by her, in turn, feeling her pulse gravely, and ordered that nobody should talk to her, and that all the questioning neighbors in the front room should be told to go away; and promised that Prue should come over, directly, with something that she must take. So that week began A week of ceaseless watching, and nursing, and fear. Gabriel, except his coat, had never his Sunday clothes off, through it all. They could n't keep it from the old man that his wife was very ill. That, and the corporeal shock which he had suffered, seemed * to suspend the workings of diseased fancy. He lay, in a childish sort of contented helplessness, asking, now and then, how "ma'am" was, and " when she was coming. " "In all this time, he recol. lected nothing, apparently, of that which he himself had done. 94 THE GAYWORTHYS. • How it would be with him, by aDd by, the doctor could not prom- ise: though he still. said, "We'll hope." Por the present, he was simply, as it were, benumbed, subdued. Joanna Gayworthy was angiy in her secret heart with Prue, for the privilege she had of entering fearlessly the afflicted home, and ministering there, day and night. Because she was a widow, and -almost forty, she could do it. She was "just the person to be there," as people said. What great difference did the years make ? She felt herself grown old enough, of late, if that were all. And her hopeless life looked to her like a long widowhood just entered.- But she must sit at home, — she and Rebecca, whom she almost hated, too, for her calmness, and keep down all her restless thoughts and questionings, and not dare even to ask what she most wanted to be told, when the others now and then came in ; seeming indifferent almost, through fear of showing too much. She wanted to know how Gabriel looked, and what he said ; she wanted to know if anybody said words of comfort to him, now and then, as there ought to be somebody to do ; if anybody made him eat and rest ; or whether he too were wearing himself ill, with nobody to notice. She wanted, — oh, this was not half! What her woman's heart wanted, was to go to him, in spite of all ; to take her stand beside him ; to tell him that his pain was her pain, and that she had come to bear it with him, for that she would not be divided from iiim now ! — What a strange world and way we live in ! This she did not do , she held herself back with a fierce might, because she .must ; because the words had never been spoken, — because she had stopped them, frivolously, when she knew they were on his lips, — that should have given her this right; because what another even like her might have done, in simple neighborly kindness, it was quite impossible for her, with her secret consciousness, to do. Prue came and went ; Eebecca asked, sometimes, if she could not do something to help or relieve her. Prue always answered, "no; it was not necessary. She and Mary Makepeace were get- ting along quite well." Joanna, if she had dared to say one word at all, — she thought so to herself, — would never have been put off in that tame way ! _ " About the same ! " Who has not known the agonizing insig- nificance and delay of that sick-room bulletin, which denies not > hope, yet, day by day, lets fear settle down more heavily ? Ga- briel heard it from the doctor, at each frequent visit ; Prue repeated it, in the intervals, at each asking look from him, and to the old man's queries. ' ' Will nobody tell me anything more ? " his thought questioned, bitterly. Yet he dared not press them to say more. ANOTHER WEEK. 95 Joanna heard it till she ceased to mate inquiry. " What is the use ? " she cried out, vehemently, to Kebecca. " They won't ' tell anything, till it tells itself." That day came. On Saturday, Prue came back, needed no more. " Here, mother, is your posy," Gabriel said again, through sobs, on Sunday, kneeling at her side. They were the last week's with- ered flowers. He found them in his mother's drawer with the folded muslin pelerine as she had put them away, — who knows with what. foreboding? Ho laid them, reverently, on the dead hands that never would reach out for posy more, and went away into the garden, to gather her yet one, — the last. On Monday, all the neighbors came, from all the country-side, and the church-bell tolled, and they buried her. When everybody else was there, Joanna could come too. Yes, like any common curious acquaintance, — the motherless girl who had loved Gabriel's mother secretly, as if she were her own. To stand there in the hushed and crowded parlor, to hear the prayer, and to struggle against tears, till she looked, and wondered if she were grown cold, and stony, and unfeeling, — to see Gabriel go. by, with bared head, unwitting of her presence, separated from her and all by the sacred isolation of his great grief, and then to go home, having never said a word to him through all, since she laid her hand upon his arm, and called him by his name, a week ago, in the He said these last words in a whisper, as if so, in the avowal of his strange, secret consciousness, he gathered up the last strength of his failing faculties, at the moment he also let go the sole cord holding him to safety ; and looked up into his son's face with an expression at once bewildered, helpless, pleading, and defiant. Then the young man stood up, in his strength. " Tather," he said, calmly, " I don't think that is going to happen to you.- And — whether or no — here I am ; and here I stay, and stand by you, as long as we both live; and no man — nor woman — shall hinder, or come between. So help me, God ! " The poor) harassed intellect that was just casting itself adrift, caught at the brave, loving words of promise, and struggled back. The old man laid his hand — the one hand he could move — in Gabriel's. His eye softened. There came a tenderness into it — a trust — a gleam of peace. "Will you?" he said in such a tone as a child might. " You was always a good boy, Gabriel." " He has passed a mental crisis," Dr. Gayworthy said, afterward. " He will never be quite himself again. But the trouble has talfen a different turn. He may live for years, — the longer for this feebleness of brain, in fact, — and be no worse than he is now." This, then, was the likelihood that lay in the future. And Mr. Hartshorne, though I have spoken of him as his neighbors did, — and as it is the fashion of New England country-folks to speak, even of a man of forty, if he have a son arrived at manly estate, — was not, literally, an old man ; He was yet under sixty. He might live twenty years. Yet Gabriel Hartshorne, with never a thought of the how long, bound a vow upon his heart, and took up this, his cross. The next Sunday, there were prayers in church, for " the young brother, sorely and doubly stricken." Nobody prayed for Joanna. But she prayed — she who best knew how — out of her pain— for him. Also, that same day, the banns of marriage were published between Anastasia Lawton and Gordon King. I have not done with my two young sisters. But this — the story of their youth — is told. Many a life-story ends to human knowledge, as abruptly. Fate does not round and finish all, in the first, few years of mortal experience. Things don't go on, in eventful succession, day by day, in the real years, as they do, page by page, in a novel. God gives us intervals ; and we can neither skip nor turn the leaves faster then they write them- selves. Threads drop midway in the web, and only the Heavenly AWOTHEK WEEK. 97 Weaver can find or reunite them. We wait, and grow gray with waiting, for the word, the seeming accident, the trifle, that may or may never, He knows, — come into the monotony of our chill- ed existence, and alter it all for us ; joining a living fibre once again, that may yet thrill with joy, to that we lost, far back in the old Past, wherein it throbbed so keenly. But you will know, now, as you see them so, while younger lives press forward to the front and claim the fresher interest, — how it came to pass that, years after, there were these two maiden sisters, counting uneventful days in the old home at Hilbury. All that most people knew was that " there had been once, folks thought, a -sort of kindness between Gabriel Hartshorne and Joanna G-ayworthy, but it never came to anything ; and after his father's mind failed, and his mother died, he seemed to give up all thoughts of marrying, and just settled down to taking care of the old man and looking after the farm. As to Bebecca, she never was anyway like other young people. She was a. born saint if the Lord ever made one." 9 CHAPTER XI. MRS. GAIK WRITES HOME. Three years after, Mrs. Vorse sat reading a letter, one day. This was it. Dear Sistek Pkub : — The golden russets and the butter came safely to hand. Thank father for them, with my love. I write my letter to you, because I have owed you one this long time ; and because I have some things to say.^a little particularly, to yourself I could not match your silk, near enough ; the old gros and granites are all gone out of existence ; but I have taken the liberty to manage for you accord- ing to my own judgment, and have used the money you sent towards" a full dress pattern of new, plain silk. What was want- ing, I made up ; and wish you would accept it as a little present from me. Joanna is well, but I don't think she is altogether con- tented. I am afraid I shan't make out to keep her much longer. "What under the sun, I wonder, can make a girl like her want to stay, year in and year out, in a place like Hilbury ? She '11 go back, anyway, in February. That she 's determined on, and when she has once made up her mind to a thing, she 's as" set as a meeting-house." To tell the truth, the meeting-house seems to be at the bottom of it ; she thinks she never can be spared out of that singing-gallery. You have lost a good many of your leading singers, one way and another, within a few years, to be sure ; Eliza Prouty being married, and Stacy Lawton, and Gabriel Hartshorne giving up that, as he has everything else, to take care of his father. Well, he has been faithful to his duty, if a son ever was. Joanna tells me— I get things out of her, by degrees, with questions, though she don't somehow run the news right off the reel as she used to ; she 's sobered down wonder- fully — that they come to meeting regularly together, and sit there in the old pew, and that the old man keeps close to Gabe, and sits half the time holding his hand, as if he could n't be near MRS. GAIB WEITES HOME. 99 enough, or have enough of him; and that, communion days, Gabriel takes the bread from the plate, and gives it to his father, and holds the cup to his lips ; and that one day, the old man broke the bit of bread in two, and gave half of it back to Gabe, just as a baby might put the spoon up to its mother, feeding it ; and G-abe took it, and looked at it a minute, with a face as if the tears were coming, and then ate it ; though he is n't a church- member. I got this out of her, by asking first one thing and then another about how they managed, and saying things myself, until she warmed up all at once, as if she could n't help it, and told me the story ; and then she stopped herself in a sudden, pro- voked kind of way, and would n't say another word about any- body. She does hate so what she calls "Hilbury gossip. Well, here I am, running on about Hilbury folks, — I always do when I get agoing, — and forgetting my particular business, I think, and so does Mr. G-air, that father might let Gershom come down here this spring and make us that visit. He was to have come, $ou know, three years ago* only Eben and Huldah went away, and you all thought he could n't be spared. I suppose he could n't ; but some mothers would have worked it, somehow. I think, if anything, Prue, you 're a little too conscientious about making Gershom do all and more than father seems to expect of .him. Father is getting old, now ; and old folks are apt to be a little one-sided and unreasonable if you humor them in everything. And it is n't quite fair to the boy, in more ways than one. He ought to see something of the world, to begin with ; and besides, folks will think, maybe, (I say it because I know as well what you really are, and how you would despise anything that was not more than above-board,) that you are keeping him hanging round, with some hopes about the property. I think, most likely, father would be willing to let him come, now, when he gets through at Winthorpe Academy; and he will have a little time to spare between that and college ; if you and father have quite settled that he is to go ; which I would n't, unless the boy's own mind was bent upon it ; it does more harm than good, otherwise. To tell the truth, though I know father makes everything of him, I don't know that it might not be just as well to let him see that you and Gershom don't take it entirely for granted that he is to provide for him. I should n't say as much, so plainly, to every- body ; but I know you are so independent that you would never bear to seem anything else, and I should feel just the same in your place. Tou need n't show this letter, of course ; or mention what I have said ; you would not be likely, to ; and I hope you always tear up all my letters ; it is never worth while to keep 100 THE OAYWOKTHYS. them, and if they are at all confidential, it is best not to leave them lying about for people to get hold of who are no way con- cerned. I don't mean to interfere ; only we stand ready, . Mr. Gair and I, to give Gershom any opportunities we can, and I want you to know it. And if he could come and stay here awhile this spring, it would be a kindness to us ; for Say, you know, is lonesome, and she thinks everything of him, and he is always so much company for her ; and, having no boy of our own, we nat- urally think a great deal of Gershom. In fact, as father said once, " he 's all the boy we 've got," and I think it will be who shall have the most of him. You can consider of this, and if you think well of it, you can tell father we have asked you to let him come, and we shall be glad to see him at any time that may be convenient. Perhaps father will come down after Joanna, and bring him along then. I had some other things to say, but I have filled and crossed my* sheet, and must let them wait till another time. Hoping to hear from you soon, I am Your affectionate sister, Jane Gair. Mrs. Gair's letter, you see, was by no means a masterpiece. Mrs. Gair herself was not a masterpiece. Yet she managed to carry out her little selfishnesses, and do her little mischiefs, and set going, in a small way, what grew to be quite sufficient evils in the end. It does n't take a great scoundrel, or whatever is the feminine of that, — dictionary men have been too chivalrous to tell us, — to accomplish every separate bit of Satan's work that gets done in the world. Catherine de Medicis may be wanted for one job, but Jane Gair will very well answer for another. There was an inconsistency, somehow, in the woman who could write just such a letter as that. The old home feeling, — for Mrs. Gair said truth when she declared that she could n't help ** running on about Hilbury folks when she once got agoing," — the capacity for appreciating a nobleness in another, — the little heart-touch in her words as she recounted what Joanna had told her of the Hartshornes, — all this was strangely enough mixed up with a very mean purpose of Jier own. People seem, often, in a marvellous way, to set themselves in contrast with themselves, and not to perceive it. Many a man to-day cheers lustily the old flag that heroes bear back from battle, having yet no idea of peril- ing a button for it, himself, that he can help ; nay, calculating its chances and mischances selfishly, studying the bulletin as a price- current. The same .style of human nature comes out identical under great variety and degree, of test. Jane Gair could discern MRS. GAIK WRITES HOME. 101 the greatness of Gabriel Hartshorne's devotion ; she could even speak of it with a little flash of enthusiasm ; yet turn deliberately to her own intent of winning away the chief dependence and com- fort of her own old father's declining years. Only, she thought she knew better than himself what was really best in the matter. That is, she told herself she thought so. One must go down very deep to find the true throbbing of the mainspring, when once mo- tives and reasonings begin to double and twist themselves within us. The real thing she was going to do — the real thing she meant to do — was, in plain words, to unsettle Gershom' s mind if she could, and lead him to disappoint her father's intentions concerning him ; to incite his love of adventure and boyish inde- pendence of 'spirit to some act or manifestation that should overturn the Doctor's plans, and decide a different future for him ; perhaps, even, alienate the two utterly. This was the secret, unworded thought ; overlaid and represented by argument that " the boy ought to know his own mind, or he 'd only be a greater disappoint- ment in the end ; that if he really wanted to go to college, looking forward, after that, to driving a doctor's chaise round the old Hilbury roads, for the remainder of his life ; she certainly would n't do anything to prevent it ; but it was n't likely he 'd be contested with that, after he 'd got ready for it ; and what was more, her father would n't find himself quite in such a hurry to give up and make way, when it came to the point as he might fancy now ; old men never did ; and it would come to the point, and he 'd haw to do it in half a dozen years or so, or else, there 'd be Gershom, standing round, waiting and spoiling, till he should step out of his shoes and leave them to him. There never was any- thing more miserable than that." " Why, it would be enough to fairly shorten his days, to let , him settle down into the feeling, that his work was almost done, and somebody else was getting ready to take hold. It would be better for both that Gershom should go his own way, if father 'd only think so." " And then, very likely, it would make some difference about that bit of paper she had seen signed and laid away, three years ago." This subtle little thought was neither boldly looked at, nor con- fessed ; yet there it lay, palpitating and alive ; imprinted in a very fine soul-type underneath everything else that had written itself above ; and was the text and prompting of it all. A little letter had fallen from within the larger, as Mrs. Vorse had opened it. This was from Say. 9» • 102 THE GATWORTHTS. Bear old Gershie : — I am so glad you are coming to see us in the spring. Mother says she has been asking you. You must stay a great while, because there will be ever so much to do. The Dido has been in, and I have been down to the wharf four times and gone on board. And then I came up through the market and bought things. The peaches and pears are all gone now, but there are nuts and funny little shiny cakes and candies. Last week the Dido sailed, and I Went down with father and saw her go. The sailors sing such funny songs. You have n't seen the sea yet. It looks just the same. And they bring back oranges and pine apples and some- times cocoanuts. The Pearl is coming by and by. It 's always nice when the Pearl comes in. She goes a good way off and only comes back once in a great while. 1 guess you '11 be here when she comes. Mother 's going to do up her letter. Good by. Eespectfully, your obedient servant, Sarah G-air. Say had inquired out, you see, the abbreviated formality at the close of a business note. Ifr contrasted funnily with the sponta- neousness of her beginning. This is how the fashions of the world will always sit upon some natures. Her mother smiled as she read it, said it was a very good little letter, and put it in. Prue was neither imposed upon, nor confounded, as she read what Jane had written. Brought to the "test of her clear, just sense of right, the composition suffered instant analysis into its true elements. She saw plainly enough what it was that Jier step-sister wanted. Not all, perhaps ; Jane herself, you know, shut her eyes to the full extent of her own purpose. But she dis- cerned that whether other people might or might not think what Jane had suggested, — she did n't believe it likely, or trouble herself at all about it, — that lady's own mind was evidently disturbed upon the subject ; had fully possessed itself with the idea that Gershom's " hanging round home " was, of design or otherwise, likely to affect her own rights and interests. And here was where, by indirect effect, Jane actually succeeded in touching that independence of spirit which she sought to provoke. Prudence Vorse read the letter through, twice, from beginning to end ; then she laid it down, and discussed clearly with herself its main points. These. Gershom must be dealt fairly by ; that argument had force. He must decide with his eyes open ; she would not shut him out from seeing or knowing what might reasonably affect his wishes and plans ; it would be good for him to go away beyond the Hilbury horizon, and get a broader look at the world. Also, MES. GAIR WRITES HOME. 103 to accomplish this for him) she knew, at this moment, no other way than to accept for him the hospitality of her step-sister. It might lead to the disappointment of her own wishes, and those of his grandfather, as Gershom had been taught to call the Doctor ; yet this thing would be only fair to the boy ; she saw that ; and, being fair and just, to Prue's mind it was, of necessity, the thing to be done. To be done, however, with a perfectly open under- standing. . The Doctor must know all her reasons, and thoughts upon the matter ; must see the possible result, as she saw it, before he gave consent to what he might not otherwise think of as more than a brief change and recreation. Jane's letter ? There was no need to* communicate more of that than its message and invitation. It was with a certain generous, high-minded con- tempt that she settled, in a half-glance of thought, that considera- tion. A weapon had been put into her hands by her adversary, if she had chosen to use it. A hint to the free-hearted old doctor of its insinuations would have made him indignantly resolute to take and keep his own way in the disposal of his own ; and might have put a purpose in his head, for the boy's benefit, if it had never been there before. But Jane knew well with whom she had to deal. This very possibility kept Prue silent ; and the confi- dence of words written With the simple request of privacy, and trusted to her, beyond recall of the hand that penned them, held her with all the sacredness oflier own pledged word. No, she had no thought of betraying Jane ; the less that she perceived so easily how Jane betrayed herself. That night, she read out to the Doctor, after tea, those portions of the letter conveying Jane's thanks to him, her mention of Joanna, and her proposal in the boy's behalf. Then she took her scissors and cut the sheet into narrow strips, and twisted them into lamplighters. This was Prue's prompt and economical fashion of disposing of such things. While she twisted, she talked. " I 've been thinking it over, and the way it looks to me, is this. You 've done a good deal, already, for Gershom ; and before- you do anything more, it would only be fair to both of you, that he should have a chance to make up his mind so that there won't be any danger of his changing it afterwards. He's never been away from home very far ; and I daresay 't would do him good. And, at any rate, we can't keep it from him that they 've asked him again ; I don't hold to hiding things that folks have a good right to know ; and there is n't any doubt but what he '11 be fierce to go. And that 's the thing. I want to come to. I think it 's more than likely myself, that when he gets down there among the 104 THE GATWOETHTS. ships and things, it'll be hard work getting him back again. There! — Now, if you don't want him to go, say so." The Doctor looked over at Prue's honest faee, and laughed. " You 're a funny special pleader," said he. " I never talk all on one side," answered Prue. " Not when I can see two sides to a thing." " Let 's look at the letter. Oh, you 've turned it into lamplighters already, have you? Well, it don't make much difference. If the boy wants to go, Prue, and you want to have him, that settles it. If he gets Mnsettled, I shall be sorry ; but if two or three weeks down there can do the mischief, it 's as good as done already, and we can't help it He's old enough now, to be put to the trial. And that 's the way it looks to me." " Two straightforward minds come quickly to understanding and conclusion. Prue answered Jane's letter thus : — Dear Jane — Your letter and parcel were duly received. Please accept my thanks for your trouble. I send you fifteen dollars, out of which you will please pay yourself whatever is due for the dress. I could not think of taking it as a present, for I had the money by me to send for a new one if it was necessary ; only I always try first whether I can make the old thfhgs over. As to Gershom, I don't know of anything to prevent his coming to Selport this spring. Your father seems to think it right that he should ; and he '11 be sure to like the plan, and be much obliged to you and Reuben for inviting him. I wrote to him yesterday, and sent him Say's letter. I don't feel at all worried about anything that folks can think of me. It 's plain enough, on the face of it, that Gershom and I owe our time and help to your father if he wants them ; and he 's given us just what he promised he would in return ; a good home, and clothing for both, and Gershom's schooling. It was a fair bargain, because it was a bargain, though a generous one on the Doctor's part, as his bargains always are. If ever he does anything more, it won't be because we 've waited round for it, or expected it. There isn't much news in Hilbury. Gordon King preached here last Sunday. He 's altered a good deal since he was mar- ried. Stacy did n't come. She could n't leave the two babies. They say_ she isn't very well contented at Winthorpe. It's a large parish, and there 's a good deal expected of her. A woman ought to be as strong as Goliath and as patient as Job, to make a good minister's wife. And Stacy never was quite that, I guess. MRS. GAIE WRITES HOME. 105 Gordon is improved in his sermons, though. Somehow, there seems to be more reality to them. You must excuse short letters. I don't pretend to be much of a hand at writing, and I don't have a great deal of time for it. Give my love to Joanna, and Say, and remember me kindly to Reuben. Yours truly, Prudence Vobse. CHAPTER XII. THE PEARL. Spring had breathed over the city. The light and joy that was in the country, among the hills and fields, somehow crept hither, also. There was the smell of tender grass in the yarrow door- yards ; the very sidewalks, as they steamed under the sun that climbed the great firmament, daily, higher and higher, had an odor as 'of the prisoned earth beneath, stirred with the sweet, uni- versal impulse of growth, and giving out sighs of gentle, yearn- ing pain, through every crevice. Little children were gay, they knew not why. Birds sang, in their cages, with a feeling of the far forests that they never saw. Houses stood with open windows, and the freshness of light and cleanliness were bestowed, where, all winter long, had been dimness and chili, and gathering dust and soil. Ladies walked out, apparelled in delicate fabrics and colors. There was a shining in shop windows of all manner of light and lovely draperies. Churches on Sunday, were beautiful with a sort of human blossom-time. Faces were bright; hearts, even the saddest, felt some instinctive spring of elasticity. Earth lay in her perihelion to heaven. And the 'Pearl had come in. From far islands, away over on the other side of the great ocean, that she left in the scorching heats of their torrid summer, she had come sailing, over and up, from clime to clime, meeting the seasons as the great globe wheeled itself, and bent its northern brow toward the summer solstice. And there she lay at the pier- end, dingy and weatherbeaten, breathing out the strange atmos- phere that had hung around her, all the long way ;" a mingling of tropical spiciness, odors of dried skins, with which she was largely laden, and the tarry flavor that had distilled itself through every- thing, while shrouds and seams were seething there under that equa- torial sun, with a glorious fragrance of rich, foreign fruits triumph- ing over all. For there were plenty of oranges and pine-apples ; and, lying in the half-deck, with spare blocks, and rope, and rolled-np sails, great piles of rough-barked, sweet-hearted cocoanuts. THE PEARL. 107 And Gershom Vorse had come to the city, too, at last. A well- grown fellow of sixteen he was now ; tall, sturdy, like a young pine ; with a mountaineer's uplifting of the. brow, and a light upon it as if it caught the shining of some far-off sun. Full of quick thought, and manly hope, — > ready for life, — glancing keenly, out of eagle eyes, into the world around him, to see what offered to him there. A boy in his imaginations and his faiths ; growing speedily to a man in will and purpose. Say was very happy in showing him abbut. Most of all, in " taking him down to see the Pearl," and doing the honors there. Captain Burley was heartily hospitable on board his brig. There were gentlemen in and out of his cabin, sometimes, on busi- ness. Mr. Gair was often on board, for some quiet consultation, secure from the interruptions of the counting-house. There was always a plate of great, red-golden oranges, such as only came in the Pearl, or in vessels that' went just where she did, — pine- apples and sugar, — or a glass of wine, — ready, either or all, according to the taste of his visitors. There was always somebody who would crack a coeoanut for Say, delivering up to her the frag- ments of the wonderful brown globe, with their lining of pure rich, delicious meat, and the thin luscious milk, saved for her in the glass she would get out of the captain's pantry. The vessel lay, as I said, at 4he pier-end ; there was a clear outlook from stem or stern. Say used to detight in lying curled up on the cushioned transom, in the little cabin, and looking, through the open stern windows, down over the bright waters of the harbor, away off, into the broad, open bay. Overhead, the stevedore and his gang might tramp and shout ; out on the wharf, might be all the bustle and noise and crowding of men, and teams, and merchandise, lading and unlading ; but down here it was safe and quiet, and opened forth upon endless expanse and freedom and coolness. Gershom would leave her, established so with her oranges and cocoanuts, and go himself all over the vessel, search- ing out its hidden places, questioning, observing, studying ; feel- ing a strange sort of reverence for the very ropes and timbers that had come, through sudden nights, and burning days, — in gales, and calms, and beautiful breezy weather, over half of the face of the round world. ' He would climb, as he had promised long ago to Say, up the rigging, and sit in the main-top, and look away where the blue water touched the sky-line ; and think what it would be for him to go sailing down there, over the mysterious verge, to find the far-off countries and islands of the earth, — he, who had hitherto seen only Hilbury rocks, and traversed woods and pas- tures and mountain roads in a small circuit of a dozen miles. 108 THE GATWOETHTS. Just over here roared the busy, growing, striving city ; but that he hardly cared for in comparison ; off yonder rolled and heaved the waters down the mighty planet-side, and his whole soul went out after his eyes, in his resistless longing to go and see the world. They spent whole afternoons here; walking up at sunset through the quieting streets at last with Mr. Gair ; whose mind, intent upon invoices and price-currents, caught no thrill of all that stirred so restlessly the heart and brain of the stripling by his side. So things wrought on together, just as one at least among those interested in results had partially foreseen and tacitly intended. Years ago, Jane Gair had laid a few little kindling sticks together, towards the building of a fire. Other and larger ones had laid themselves as it were since, or had been flung on by circumstance and opportunity. There was a pretty pile ready now, and a match was touched. When she saw little threads of smoke begin to creep up among them, she set herself judiciously to blow. There are two ways of using one's breath upon a flame. It depends on whether one wishes to blow it up or blow it out. Either may be done perhaps at first, and a heedless bystander might not discern at first which was intended. Mrs. Eeuben Gair did not blow up 1 on Gershom Vorse's kindling fancy as if she meant to blow it out. One real, cold, vigorous puff, at the right instant, might have been effectual. She blew ; but gently. It was a mild show of remonstrance and caution, against which the flame curled only stronger into life. Presently, it would gain such headway that she might labor against it as heartily and directly as she pleased, yet the blaze would only grow and mount more mightily. Then nobody looking on could blame her, surely. Then she might say to her own conscience, even, — " It 's none of my doing. I have persuaded ; I have opposed ; the boy will have his own way." " I don't know, Gershom," she said to him one evening, com- ing to him in the front window, after tea was over, — "about all this going to the wharf. I am afraid the Pearl has a little bewitched you." " What if she had, Aunt Jane? " " Oh, I don't know. It won't do to get too much taken up. It is n't what you 've got to do with, you know." " I have n't found out what I have got to do with, yet I 've just come down out of the hills. I 've only had books to tell me what 's in the world ; I 've got out to an edge here, where I can look off. I think that 's it, — more than the Pearl." THE PEARL. 109 " There 's a good deal to see here, without looking off." " Yes ; people walking up and down the streets, between their stores and houses, just as if there was n't anything beyond. I don't see how they can do it. I don't see how anybody can get as far as this, and not want to go farther." " You 'd better put those notions out of your head. They won't answer. Things are pretty much settled for you, already, I guess." There came a cloud over the boy's face. This touched where human nature — young human nature, at least — inevitably rebels. " Things get unsettled sometimes," he said, half under his breath. " I'm rather sorry," said Aunt Jane, "that you've been kept quite so long at home. I always thought it would have been better to give you a chance to look about you sooner. It 's like coming suddenly out of the dark. You 're dazzled, at first. But it 's only the novelty. You '11 get over it." " There 's more novelty out there, somewhere. And I never heard of anybody who wanted to go back into the dark." Gershom's thoughts defined themselves, as they were drawn out in argument. His words declared as much to himself that he had hardly looked at before, as to his listener. More, perhaps. " T — t— t 1 " Mrs. Gair's tongue made a little, untranslatable deprecating sound against the roof of her mouth. " That de- pends, some, upon what there is to go back for. People must think what is for their interest. What could you do, off in the world, alone ? " Pride and independence — yes, even honor, — got a prick in this little sentence. The boy was amazed, within himself, at the sudden start and growth, almost into determination, of his secret, settled wishes. " I might find out what, perhaps. , Others have. And I don't mean to be a good boy just for what I can get. I shan't be a baby, all my life, to sit in peoples' laps, and be fed." " Why, Gershie, you 're spunky ! as Eben used to say ; " exclaimed Aunt Jane, and laughed. But there were sudden tears in the boy's eyes, after the fire. The thought came to him, how he had been fed, and taught ; and what he owed; and how he was held. A generous throb of grat- itude and affection struggled with the strange, impetuous impulse just born into conscious life. Together, they burst forth in a short, quick, single sob. He put his elbow up, upon the window- ledge, and, turning his face half away, leaned his chin upon his 10 110 THE GAYWOETHTS. hand, and looked, vacantly, through a great glistening, out into the street. " Why,** Gershie ! " began Aunt Jane, again, " You quite worry me. I 'd no idea the mischief had gone so far. Or that there was any real mischief at alL I shall have to write home about you, if you feel like this." " No," said Gcrshom, turning back suddenly, and rising to his feet " Don't do that. When there 's anything to write about, I'll write myself. Or go." And with that, he put his hands into his pockets, and walked off into the back parlor, where Say was spreading out her " Mansion of Happiness ; " and offered to play with her. Presently, they were both busy with teetotum and counters, as if nothing else were in heart or head of cither. A little door, opened for an instant by an unexpected word, had swung to again upon the secret place in a human heart, , whence motive power was fed, and a steam of purpose generated that should become the propelling force of a human life. But Aunt Jane had glanced in, and seen that the fire was burning, — well. The next evening, Captain Burley came to tea. With an un- usual blandness, Aunt Jane had herself proposed the invitation. " We ought to have him here," she said. " He 's been very kind to the children. It seems to me they have half lived on board the Pearl, since she came in." Mrs. Gair was ordinarily rather shy of proffering or even assenting to this sort of hospitality, to " business people." Captain Burley picked his teeth, put his feet on the fender, tilted back his chair, and spat in the grate. What if Mrs. Topliff and her husband should happen to come in, in a social way, as she had asked them to do ? To be sure they never had happened in, since the Pearl went away before ; but the possi- bility was always hanging over her head. Mr. Gair very willingly conveyed the invitation which he had somewhat timidly delayed suggesting. Captain Burley talked Well. I do not mean elegantly, or elo- quently ; except so far as eloquence is understood as comprehend- ing the power with which even an ordinary fashion of speech may convey from a mind fully possessed with its topic, its aspects and interests to the minds of others. Captain Burley was a thorough sailor. He was a great, full- souled, generous man, too. It seemed as if he held the sea in his heart, and all his emotions became like the pulsing of mighty tides. This nature that was in him, flowing out into his common conversation, made it strong and salt ; sparkling, too, when any little touch of sunshine played upon it. Gershom sat by, listen- THE PEARL. , 111 ing ; something responsive waking up, -within himself, to all he heard. " I 'm sorry," said Mr. Gair, "that we could n't have kept Oakman for you, this trip." " Can't be as sorry as I am," said the Captain. " The brig won't know how to behave herself, without him. He 's the smart- est fellow that ever trod a dock and was n't master of it. Can't blame him though. If I'd an old mother out West, that I had n't clapped eyes on for three years' voyagin', I guess I 'd shake off salt water, and lay my course overland, too ! " " He '11 get that new barque of Kentley's when he comes back. They 've been after him." V Likely he will. And he ought to. That, or something else as good. But that ain't what -he's workin' sail for. Pity you've promised the new brig to Dixon. He 'd have been the man for her. It 's as good as a double insurance, to put him on a quarter deck. Saved the whole voyage, to say nothing of my life, that last time but one. We 'd have been hauled up there in Charles'on harbor, cargo all tumbled out, and crew off, in the middle of the yellow fever, if 't had n't been for him. And I don't know another man that could have helped it. I tell you, — he 's a kind of Tar- paulin Bonaparte ! " " You tell that story yet, don't you, Captain ? " said Mr. Gair laughing. " Well, it 's a good one." " Ask him to tell it now," whispered Gershom eagerly to Aunt Jane. Mrs. Gair turned from the boy's kindling face to the sea-browned visage of the skipper, that was lighting all over also with the pleased recollection of difficulty met, man-fashion, and peril passed safely through. It would evidently be no less pleasure to toll than to listen. " May n't wc hear about it, Captain Burley ? " she asked. " Certainly, ma'am. 'Tisn't a long story. Now — to tell — I mean. We thought 't was a tolerable long story in the time of it. Or he did, at any rate. He did n't let me know it all, as it went on. You see," continued the Captain, bringing his chair down quietly to its four feet, as cognizant again of ladies' pres- ence, and releasing his .thumbs from the corners of his trowsers' pockets where they had hitched themselves, to place his hands upon his wide-spread knees, and lean a little forward toward his questioner, as he spoke, — "we was coming up from Bio. Cargo ' of coffee and sugar. Some hides. Been out thirty days ; both- ered about with calms and head winds on the line and all the way up, till we took the northeast trades; worked along up with them till we got just to the north'ard of St Thnmio. 112 THE GAYWORTHYS. " I was down below, sick, in my berth ; got awfully knocked up, somehow ; had n't been well all the way from Kio, nor before we sailed. Oakman had the handling of the brig. All at once — sprung a leak. Made two feet and a half of water before we knew what we were about. Could n't tell where it came in. Mis- trusted some foul play on the part of the crew ; had some trouble- some fellows aboard. "Well ; we set the men at the pumps ; had to keep 'em going night and day. Pretty soon they began to grumble ; thought we ought to put in. Talked about making the Hole in the Wall, and getting in to Nassau. Nice place that would have been ! Wreckers, and pirates, and general average, and hides all eaten up with worms ! At last the third day in the afternoon, a gang of 'em came aft, to Oakman. ' What 's the Captain go- ing to do with us ? ' That was what they wanted to know. Wanted it pretty much in what you might call the imperative mood, too. ' Ain't he going to put in ? ' ' Can't say,' says Oakman, with a cigar in his mouth. ' Will if he must, I suppose ; have n't asked him, though, and don't mean to, as long as I can help it.' ' Well, Mr. Oakman,' says the foremost fellow, ' if we don't see Providence Channel in a day or so, — we know we 're somewhere off there, — we shall have more to say about it. We hain't had less 'n a foot 'n a half o' water since we 've been at the pumps. Men have got some sort of a right to speak for their lives; be,' — well, so-and- so 'd considerably, — ' if they hain't ! ' That was n't the only place where he put in the trimmins, neither. Well ; Oakman just stood, and looked at 'em ; straight, without winkin'. " ' See here, my men,' said he, ' d 'ye think you 're going to gain anything by this ? The brig 's in my hands, subject to the Cap- tain's approval, as long as he 's able to give me an order ; and when he ain't, — whether or no. And as far as I 'm concerned, I'm going to take good care of her, and all that 's in her ; lives, and cargo, and all. Best I can. My own life 's aboard, too. Maybe you did n't think of that. You go for'ard again, and obey orders. If we find ourselves off ' Hole in the Wall,' ('t was n't likely.for we 'd crossed the tropic, and the wind had come out from the sou'west, fair and strong; and we was in longitude seventy then, if we was an inch;)' and the pumps don't tell a better story, I'll advise him to put in. And if that leak is found, — or, stopped, — every man Jack of you gets extra grpg as long as we 're out, and a Spanish doubloon, atop of his wages, when we get into port ! ' " There was always a kind of a look in that blue eye of his, that the men could n't stand against. 'Twas n't savage, neither. What with that, and the notion of the grog and the gold, they pulled forelocks, and took themselves for'ard, half paci- THE PEARL. 113 ficd ; and that lasted till we got up into latitude thirty degrees, just under the Bermudas. Then they began to look grumpy again. ' We 've run a good while before this sou' -west wind, \Hr. Oakman,' says Kneeland, the second mate, coming aft. He was as bad as any of 'cm. ' Why did n't you get in at Nas- sau?' 'You've just said why,' gays Oakman. 'Been running before a sou'-west wind. You did n't suppose I should try to make New Providence with a breeze like this in my teeth ? ' ' Guess we '11 have to see about something soon,' says Kneeland, ' or the men won't stand it. Them — so-and-so'd — ' pumps is working the hearts out of 'em.' ' Leak as bad as ever ? ' ' Don't s'pose' you need telling, sir ; you know 't is.' ' Sorry for it,' says Oakman,' coolly, ' on account of the doubloons. Don't gain any, does it ? ' ' No, sir ; nor the pumps don't gain on it ; and if the men give out, there we go, to Davy's locker, sure as ,-' mentioning a place that some folks seem to be mighty sure of, and other folks ain't so certain about. ' They won't give out,' says Oakman, again. 'We '11 bear away for Charles'on; and if matters don't mend, we '11 put in there. Double their grog. — Eight bells. Call the watch ! ' Well, there was so much west in the wind, you see, that we could n't make Charles'on. Kept along up the coast, and came off Hatteras. Began to talk about Norfolk. Passed off there, — a good way off, — in the night. Good, stiffish weather ; fair wind. If this holds,' says Oakman, ' we '11 be into New York by day after to-morrow. He 'd kept well out into the Gulf Stream, and we was then in long- itude only a little west of seventy ; and, by George, sir ! While those fellows were keeping their eyes peeled for New York, we made Cape Cod ! " Captain Burley turned round, as he came to this climax of his story, warmed up by the recollection, to an apparent entire forget- fulness that he had ever told it before, or that Mr. Gair knew any- thing about it ; slapping his right hand down upon his knee, with a jolly emphasis, and his ruddy brown face all aglow with delight. And Mr. Gair laughed back again, as heartily as if the Pearl had but yesterday finished her hazardous passage, and he were learn- ing for the first time the clever daring that had opposed itself to threats of elements and mutinous men, and in the end made such a capital joke out of it all, for fireside rehearsal. " Yes," resumed the Captain, presently ; " it 's a good thing to tell ; and it was a grand thing to do ; and folks on shore can't take in the whole beauty of it, neither. I guess nobody but Oakman himself, and the Lord Almighty, ever knew what he went through, mind and body, to get that brig in, and save the property. I don't believe he had an hour's sleep, together, between the Bahamas and 10* 114 THE GAYWORTHTS. Cape Cod Light. And he had n't a dollar's interest, neither, be- yond his wages. It was just, as you might say, his own life against owners and underwriters, that he had to consider. And he stuck to his duty. I don't know how it appears to other folk£, sir, but it don't seem to me that God looks down out of heaven on any braver or better thing, than a man standing on the deck of his vessel, out of sight and knowledge of every human being but the few he 's responsible over, in mortal peril between sea and sky, and. doing the best he can, boldly, to the last, for what 's been trusted to him by men a thousand miles off, asleep, comfortably, maybe, in their beds. It 's easy to talk about ; but doing as you 'd be done by is one kind of a thing ashore, and a tfranengious dif- ferent kind of a thing, very often, I can tell you, out at sea ! " " Did the sailors get their doubloons? " asked little Say, after a pause. " I think they ought to, when they worked so hard. And I don't wonder they got frightened." " That 's the strangest part of the whole thing. We 'd no sooner made Cape Cod Light, than all of a sudden, just as unac- countable as it had started, that leak stopped. Pumps sacked. Everything tight and dry. Might have turned round and gone back to Rio, if there 'd been anything to go back for. Of course, it looked more 'n ever as if the men themselves had had a hand in it ; and when they found 't was no use, and they could n't put in much short of home, they gave it up, and saved their trouble and their doubloons. Well, they got 'em, — yes ; your father's a man that keeps his promises, even when other folks has to make 'em for him ; and now, see what turned up. When we got that vessel up on the ways, there it all was, plain as preaching ; pretty good preaching, too, I think. There was the starboard garboard seam, close by the stern, had opened ; long enough, you 'd say, to sink a seventy-four; and laid right into it, as neat as any caulking, was a fish. Long, narrow fellow, almost like an eel ; sucking-fish, they call' em ; made a-purpose, and a complete fit. Got hold with his big, round mouth, just for 'ard of the leak, exactly where the water drawing in, took his body neatly along into the seam ; and there it was. Thing done. Folks talk about Providence, but I saw it then, if I never did afore. That night, came on the first storm we 'd had from Cape St. Eoque ; and a regular peeler. Had to keep well off the coast, and beat about for a couple of days, before we could treat ourselves to a sight of land again. If it had n't 'a been for that fish coming along just in the nick of time, like Jonah's whale, we 'd all have been swal- lowed up, fast enough : never could have weathered it an hour. I 've had queer things happen to me in my life ; but, take it HIE PEARL. 115 altogether, I don't think I ever experienced anything queerer than that passage from Bio." " I 'm so glad the poor sailors got their money, and it was all found out that they didn't make the leak," said Say, slipping her hand into her father's, and nestling closer to his side upon the sofa. " Wouldn't you like to see such a man as that Mr. Oak- man, Gershie ? " " I 'd like to be such a man," said .Gershom, all afire, and speaking out, forgetting his boy's reserve. " I could tell you more than that about him. People have chances for bravery, if it 'sin 'em, out at sea. It was only two or three years ago that he saved a whole ship-load of German emi- grants. He was second mate of the Grampus, then, bound home to New York. Just this side of the Grand Banks, they fell in with a vessel in distress ; dismasted, and sinking. Emi- grant ship Adelheid, from Hamburg. Hundred and seventy poor souls on board, screaming and praying in Dutch. High sea running ; could n't get a boat alongside. Bore up to windward as near the wreck as they could, and sent out boats and a hawser. Oakman was the first to be off, and carried the rope. Got as near alongside as he could and flung it aboard. There they made it fast, and rigged a running bowline. When the poor, scared devils found out that this was all that could be done for them, and they 'd got to swing for their lives in that fashion, they all hung back and screamed and prayed in harder Dutch than ever. The Captain told the men to do as they liked ; he should stay by the ship till the passengers were safe. His three officers stood by him ; noble fellows, all of 'em. I tell you, 't was a ticklish time. Late in the afternoon, — the vessel settling slow and sure towards the water's edge, — the Grampus standing off to windward, and drifting away from her all the time, — and those poor creatures, mostly women and children, huddled together on the doomed deck, trembling and crying ; feeling safer, poor fools, to keep the planks under them, than to trust themselves to a bowline-hitch over the raging water. The Captain and officers coaxed 'em, — stormed at 'em. No use. Nobody would go first. Then up came Oakman, over the ship's side, by the hawser, and sprung, dripping, on to the deck. Never said a word. Shook himself, and looked round. Nearest to him was a woman with two chil- dren, all on their knees. Youngest about six years old. Oakman grabbed him, screaming, made him fast with the bowline, and swung him down, safely, into the boat. Then the men began to cheer. ' Don't be frightened,' says Oakman, in a bright hearty way, that they understood, if they did n't his words, and picking 116 TOE GAYWOUTIIYS. up the other child ; ' we '11 save you all.' Mother hollered Dutch at him, but he did n't stop to listen. Did n't know a word she said, and did n't want to. When the second child had been passed down, she stopped hollering, and made up her mind to go too. And that started all the rest. After that, it was which should go first. One after another, the boats were filled, and pulled away for the Grampus. Back they came, and filled again. A longer pull, each time, to and fro ; the Grampus drifting, drift- ing, all the while, and the night darkening down. When the last boat was loaded, with every soul that she could safely carry, there stood the Hamburg Captain and his three officers, pale, and stern, and brave, refusing, every man of 'em, to set foot into a boat until the rest were safe. So they pulled away again, and left 'em. Wind and sea were higher than ever, and the Grampus farther off. Drifting, every moment, away ; and the cloudy twi- light coming on. ' Where 's the Captain of the ship ? ' shouted out the master of the Grampus, as that last boat came towards her with its load. ' Stayed by, sir ! ' was the answer. ' He and the three mates. We were all full.' ' My God ! ' cries the Captain, with a look at the scudding clouds, and the waves with their white caps on. ' I can't leave those fellows behind ! Who '11 pull for the wreck again ? ' ' I '11 go, sir,' says Oakman. And then, for half a minute, nobody else offered. It was a chance if they ever stood on that deck again, if they left it now. Oakman waited that half minute, and then, looking round at the men, — I can see how the blue fire would be lighting in his eyes, — ' which of you goes with me, boys V Don't all speak at once ! ' says he. So, out of bravery or shame, four of ' em stepped forward then, and went down with him over the ship's side. I suppose that Ham- burg Captain and his mates had said their prayers, and taken their leave of this world, when that boat came climbing up, over a great, green wave, toward the wreck again. ' Here we are ! ' sung out Oakman. The four men on the wreck gave the begin- ning of a shout together, and stopped, as it were, in the midst. They said afterwards, it was to look round at each other, and grasp hands, with great, choking sobs. Two minutes more, and they were in the boat, pulling, for their lives, up and down those awful sea-ridges, towards where they hoped to find the Grampus. And from the peak of one, as it lifted them, they saw the Adel- heid make a great swirl, and go down." " Did they get baok safe to the Grampus ? " asked Say, breath- less, when the Captain paused. "To be sure!" he replied, lightly. "Hasn't Oakman just come home with me, in the Pearl ? " THE PEAKL. 117 "Oh, wvddrCt you like to be such a man, Ger3hic?" cried Say. G-ershom sat still, and made no answer, now. In his heart, he said to himself, that, if he lived, he meant to be such a man. After this story, Mr. Gair and the Captain got to talking about Hamburg, and Elsinore, and Copenhagen, and St. Petersburg, and the Russia trade, till Say curled herself up on the end of the sofa, and went to sleep ; soothed by a confused, dreamy repetition of hemp, and duck, and bolt-rope, and pig-iron, and duties, and consignments, and bills of exchange, and Steiglitz and Co. ; and Gershom sat, half listening, going oyer again, all the while, in imagination, the scenes on board the disabled Pearl, and the foun- dering Adelheid; till, by and by, at ten o'clock, the Captain departed, and the boy, as well as Say, went off to bed ; not to sleep ; to lie awake till after the slow, deep voices of the city bells had clanged out, one to another, from different points, the strokes of twelve ; as a thought, wrought slowly toward the birth, in differ- ent souls, announces itself at last, from opposite sides the earth, when the hour is ripe ; thinking, feverishly, of all that he had heard ; of the free, brave life that enticed him forth to make it his own ; of the ties that held him to his home among the hills ; of how he would write to his grandfather, and tell him, truly, all he felt ; and of what he should say. CHAPTER XIII. PBOVEKBS. "But I thought you were all fitted for college?" said Mr. Gair, .with a fresh recollection and surprise. He had been consider- ably surprised this afternoon. " Yes, sir," returned Gershom. " But grandfather always said, that fitted for college was fitted for anything. He never made me feci as if I had got to go." " 1 don't want to be the means of your disappointing him, though," rejoined the merchant. " I should n't feel warranted in encouraging such a notion, unless I knew what he would say to it, first.!' " No, sir. That's what I mean to find out. But I did n't want to trouble him at all, till I knew whether I could have a chance or not." " What do you say to all this, Captain Burley ? " The two gentlemen sat in Mr. Gair's inner counting-room. The boy stood there, before them, cap in hand, his eyes glowing, his whole face eager with the intensity of the wish he had come there to make known. "I should say," replied the hearty Captain, looking upon the lad with a certain approving recognition, " that he 'd got it." "What?" " Ship-fever. The sort that nothing but a voyage '11 work off. And not that, if he 's the stuff he looks to be, " he added, in an undcr-tone, to Mrs. Gair. " Could you find a berth for him aboard the Pearl ? " The young fellow's eyes glistened, and flashed quick at Captain Burley from under their thick lashes. His fingers crushed ner- vously upon his cap-rim. Captain Burley saw it, although he seemed to be looking out of the window. " There 's a berth for him somewhere I guess. Always a place in this world for everything that 's made, and he 's made for a sailor, if I know the signs. Write to your grandfather, young man ; and rr.ov-KRES. 119 when you get your answer, corao down aboard the Pear], and let me know. ' " Thank you, sir." With a great gulp back of his heart into its place, that had seemed to spring into his throat with the sudden throb of joy. " Uncle "Eeuben ! " " Well ? " " I think, if you please, we might as well not say any more about this till we hear from Hilbury. I don't think I could bear being disappointed of it, if it wcro much talked over." " There 's where you 're right, boy. We '11 say no more till Saturday. Write to-day, and you '11 get your answer by then. The Pearl won't sail for a week, at least; An hour's notice will be long enough to get your outfit." Mr. Gair turned round to his desk and his papers. Gershom went out, and down stairs. Up the wharf, to where the Pearl lay. He sprang over the gang-plank, and on board. Getting in cargo. All bustle, and apparent confusion. He went forward, and leaned against the bulwark, looking over the bow. He laid his hand lovingly on the solid timbers, as if the vessel were a living thing, to be caressed and delighted in with a tenderness. He looked down into the forecastle. That was to be his home. Here he should have bold, brave 'fellows for companions; here ho should listen to stories of daring and danger, and the wild, strange hap- penings of sea-life, and the wonders of far-off lands. Here he should grow strong and hardy for great deeds of his own. It was all a poem and a romance. He never thought of brutal captains, or of coarse, degraded men ; of mean tyrannies, or low contaminations ; of all he might meet, all he must meet, in an apprenticeship of years to this profession that he would choose. He was to look up to men like Burley and Oakman ; he was to stand, by and by, in places like theirs. The Captain's words were ringing in his ears ; " God looks down out of heaven on no braver nor better thing ! " He stood there, with the firm, even deck under his feet, and longed to feel it bounding away upon the free ocean that he knew only in fancy. To be out there, " between sea and sky," even if it were "in mortal peril ! Gaptain Burley had said right. It was a fever that was upon him. The fever that a boy must have, — if the boy be but the possibility of a man, — when the fire within him kindles, whatever it may be that sets it alight. Books, or tools, or soldiering, or sea- faring, — it is all the same ; the force that is in him wakes, and grasps at something ; and the soul that is in him lifts that some- thing up, and idealizes it into a divineness of life, and wreathes it with a glory. Most of all, perhaps, when, from .a quiet country . 120 THE GAYWOBTHYS. life like Gershom's back among the hills, — where he has dreamed of the great waters, and the ships that go up and down thereon, — he comes first to behold the "infinite glitter of the sea, and his eyes are smitten with its far-off gleam, and the tingle of its brine is in his nostrils, till he chafes to be offend away upon it, and any dry- land life grows tame compared with its boundless promise, its rousing demand upon all his flushing manhood. There is no possession like the possession of the boy who craves to be a sailor. Gershom could not have gone straight out from that counting room and gone tip those stifled streets, properly, as if nothing had happened, and there were no need for him, any more than for all the rest of the lubberly people, to throw up his cap with a shout, when words were thrilling in his ears that offered a fulfilment of this hope of his that had slumbered within him, growing stronger in its sleep, for years. He must needs have stood first, for thoso few moments, on the deck of the Pearl once more. Then he walked up through the town to Hill Street, quietly enough to outward show, but with a bound in his veins that made the bricked sidewalk seem to spring beneath his feet; his young brain busy with all manner of eager thoughts. "Gershie's got his door locked 1" cried Say, in an ill-used voice an hour or two after. " And when I called to him, he told me to run away. And I have n't got anything to do ; and I wanted him to play Happiness with me ; and it '11 be tea-time presently." Mrs. Gair's face took on a cloudy expression. " He 's mighty in- dependent, I think," said she, more to herself than to the child, " considering all things." " He would n't take me down to the wharf, this afternoon. And he-'s been shut up in his room, ever since he got home." Mrs. Gair's face grew suddenly placid. Her tone smoothed itself, also; and it was a very sweet and timely admonition to unselfishness that she was all at once inspired to give her little daughter. " Well, never mind, Say. He '11 come presently. I suppose he wants to be by himself, sometimes. You mustn't be exacting. It is very wrong and disagreeable for little girls to expect older people to attend to them all the time." Say seldom persisted in the wrong and disagreeable. She had been very patient, already ; and appealed only when her small endurance had been tried nearly too far. Sh» sat down to Happi- ness alone ; such happiness as she could make out of it so. That was the child's nature. Ah, the prophecies that are in these dawn- PBOVEBBS. 121 ing traits of temperament and capacity ! Can the child bear quietly — console itself easily — wait long ? There is neves a power with- out a demand for it. It needs no reading of a horoscope, no palm- ister's divining, to tell something of the life-lines of such. Is there busy activity — skill — contrivance? An aptitude to make much out of a little ? Be sure that when the germs of these were hidden in the baby-brain, there was no " silver spoon " laid ready for the lips. Mrs. Gair got up presently, and left the room. When she re- entered five minutes afterward, her face was even more beautifully serene than before. She told her parlor-maid, who came to lay the table in the inner room, that tea need not be hurried ; Mr. Gair had not come in ; in fact, she was busy herself, and should not object to its being half an hour later than usual. A little momentary pause, that she had made, upstairs, before a closed door, might or might not have had to do with this. I should not like to say she stooped, as well as paused, there, for an instant. People do stoop, sometimes, however, — when there is something they have special occasion to pick up. Gershom Vorse was busy writing his letter to the Doctor. By and by, his step came down the stairs. A little softly, I must own ; for Gershom had his own business to manage, now ; and he had learned that in Mrs. Jane Gair's house business must often be managed softly. Mrs. Jane heard him, however ; saying nothing ; but making a sudden noise with pulling the heavy table a little nearer' to herself, instead of moving her easily-rolling chair towards the table. Gershom got by the parlor door, and out into the street, without recall or hindrance. At the risk of being late to tea, and getting a glum look from Aunt Jane, he must post his letter, him- self, to-night. Aunt Jane knew that, perhaps, as well as he did. But tea was a little late, as we have seen it was meant to be ; and Mr. Gair was still chatting with Say upon his knee, when Gershom came in ; his faee flushed and his hair damp, with all the exercise he had taken, and the excitement he had had, that warm, summer-like, May afternoon. " Well, Gershom," said Mr. Gair, as he cut off two or three of the curling spires from the form of fresh butter, that was done up, in a way they had in Hilbury, like a golden pine-apple, by some mysterious dinting and shaving, — "have you attended to .your affairs as you proposed 1" Mr. Gair was always flying kites, and catching the electric cur- rent ; learning no wisdom by getting so much more of it, often, than he at all wanted. Gershom wondered at Uncle Beuben's way of keeping a secret ; and felt, with a flash of dismay, that it 122 THE GAYWORTHYS. was all out, now, hopelessly ; and must be discussed, over and over, through and through. Aunt Jane was quick on the scent, and a thorough mouser ; no small rodent could show nose or tail out of his hole, with any hope of whisking it back again in safety from her nimble claw. But somebody caught something, once, and let it go again ; to grow. Aunt Jane was busy with the teapot, which, she told the maid, had grown cold; and bade her, with some displeasure, fetch boiling water. " I have told you so often, Winny, that Mr. Gair must have his tea hot." And when she turned round again, it was to admonish Say to sit straight, and tuck her napkin under her chin, and to keep her elbows off the table. Gershom only said " yes, sir ; " and found, to his -very great sur- prise and relief, that question and answer both passed unnoticed. It was astonishing how Aunt Jane entered into the children's amusements that evening ! She played Happiness with them ; and then they had out the bagatelle board, which she usually opposed ; the balls, she said, made her so nervous. But she rolled, herself, to-night ; and people doil't mind a noise when they help to make it. She kept them ingeniously busy ; so that Say was confounded wheu the nine o'clock bell rang ; and after the child had gone to bed, Mr. Gair being quite absorbed in his Journal of Commerce, Mrs. Gair took up the Lady's Book, and when she was reading, nobody ever talked. Gershom was rapt and happy in Boss's Voy- ages. For the most part, therefore, there was a pin-drop silence, until they separated for the night. Mrs. Gair was reading, appar- ently ; and looking at Fashions ; really, she was playing proverbs ; " None so deaf as those who won't hear." And, " let well enough alone." I have no doubt that if Mrs. Jane had been only half as deter- mined to hear, as she was not to hear, the whole matter would have come out, up stairs, after all, in matrimonial retirement. But she was very tired, and not conversationally disposed. It is sometimes so well to have known nothing. CHAPTER XIV. THE EXPECTANT SYSTEM. Now, Mrs. Gair exploded. Now, Mrs. Gair was righteously indignant at this that had been done. Now, it was quite safe to use the utmost of her breath against the flame, and she blew ac- cordingly. - '« Well ! I wash my hands of the whole thing. Nobody con- sulted me. Gershom has been very sly. He knew I disapproved his going so much to the wharf, and hanging about the Pearl. I saw what it was likely to come to. I told him, a week ago, that I must write to his grandfather about it, and that 's what I ought to have done. It 's a great shame for him to disappoint father bo, after all his kindness; and I doubt if he finds it answer to his interest, in the end. But it 's no use to talk. There is n't any help for it, now. They can't blame me at any rate." " But perhaps it can be helped," returned Mr. Gair, quite overwhelmed by his wife's view of the subject, and the sudden sense it gave him of his own guilt " Gershom would n't persist, if he thought it was such a serious matter with the old gentleman. Had n't you better speak to him again ? " " No, — I ve done. The fancy ought to have been kept out of his head, in the first place. Now it 's there, and father knows it, there 's nothing, more to be said. He wouldn't send him to col- lege against his inclinations; but what he hoped was, that he might incline to go. It's all up with, now; the milk's spilt; and it 's no use making anybody uneasy. Only, don't let them blame me. I've been kept in the dark." Mr. Gair began to feel quite miserable. As if he had been doing something mean and secret ; working against his father-in-law's wish and will. As if he had done Gershom, too, a vital disservice. This splash, and sense of uncleanness, he got by standing by while his wife " washed her hands." Do you suppose Mrs. Gair saw her own double-dealing in its 124 THE GAYWORTHYS. true light ? I don't. It is only to the single eye that self stands illumined. In the body that is full of darkness, there are secret lurking-places below where vision reaches ; and here lie motives that are never looked at ; thoughts that are never set in words ; involuntary springs that send out their odyllic force without the in- tervention of even mental muscle. I think she told herself with a certain real outside indignation, strangely coexisting with a more interior satisfaction, that she had been set aside, — unfairly treated. And she made the most, to herself, as well as to others, of her injury and her position. None the less an injury because of the great good luck she felt it, and the little intention she had had, all .along, of being treated precisely so. This she never took into the account. She meant to do nothing unjustifiable ; she had done nothing. She had seen how things were tending ; very -well, let them tend ; now, they had resulted, and she stood absolved. If, as it turned out, it were all the better for her, what then ? She might not be sorry to have Prue's great boy well out of the way ; she might not be sorry if even hisaltered course in life should alter* her father's intentions towards him ; yet, all the same, he had put himself out of the -way, of hia own free will. He himself, had for- feited whatever he might lose. It wassno doing of hers. If he sailed away, some day, and never came back, even, — there were many chances of this in a sea life, — the responsibility lay not at her door. Jane Gair ! You will not find yourself able, to the very end, to forward your intents thus passively. Practice upon the "expect- ant" theory will not suffice for all crises. There will come test hours, when the hand must be put forth, or stayed ; when the seal of deed must be set to the secret motive. Satan will have nothing less than the sign-manual of his own, at the last. There had come an answer from Hilbury. Kindly, free-hearted ; indicating little of the pain that must have lain behind. " I am sure," said Mr. Gair, reading it over for the second time, after that unpleasant sense of complicity had been put upon him, " I don't see that the Doctor takes it so much to heart, after all." " There is scope for nobleness in every profession," wrote the good old physician, in reply to Gershom's enthusiastic reasoning in behalf of his desire. ' ' It takes a whole man to be really anything. - And even physical bravery may come in play, as you would find, not seldom, in the pursuit of a vocation that must now and then set a man's thought for his own life and limb, to say nothing of comfort, against his care for lives and limbs of others. I have spent many a dark night among the hills, here, whose peril was not less, perhaps, than that of the sailor in the same dark night, at sea. THE EXPEOTAKT SYSTEM. 125 Alone, too ; I and my old nag ; God with us, as everywhere; — that was all. And there have been men of my calling in camps and hospitals, in times of war and pestilence, and will need to be, now and then, as long as the world lasts, as brave in the face of death and destruction as God ever let a great soul be. " Yet, if your whole heart is bent on this, — go, boy; and God bless you ! Come first, and say good-by, though, if you can." This letter, with one also from his mother, Gershom got on Saturday evening, sent down by way of Winthorpe. On Sunday, the subject was first broached openly in the household in Hill Street. We have seen how it was met by Mrs. Gair. She washed her hands of the whole thing, and went to church. She was a zealous churchwoman, here in Selport, where Episeopalianism was the height of fashion ; and sat, every Sunday, in a pew behind the Topliffs, in the handsomest sacred edifice in town. She prayed God, to-day, with all the people, to " defend and provide for the fatherless children and widows;" to deliver her from "evil and mischief," arid " privy conspiracy; " and all the while, away down in that dark place of her heart, among its unexamined things, the thought was lying, pulsing out by snatches — never acknowledged or entire — like a phosphoric writing : " He has made his own bed, now, and must lie upon it. The thing works well." Then, the glimmer of a doubt, — "father is foolishly indulgent and patient with him, after all. What if it should n't make any par- ticular difference? " Still, in the fine soul- type I have spoken of before ; not looked upon deliberately, or read. Heart-evil does not denude itself in shameless monologue. It never sets itself off, objectively, even to its most secret consciousness. Mrs. Gair was making her responses in the Litany; and she made them all, even to the last ; feeling no shudder of dread at her desert, when to the utterance, " Lord, deal not with us according to our sins," she answered, with the rest, " Neither reward us according to our iniquities." " Do you think grandfather is very sorry about it? " asked Gershom, suddenly, when he and Aunt Jane were walking home together from afternoon service. "If you had asked my advice before, Gershom, — which you did n't, — " (Mrs. Gair meant that this should be well kept in mind, — "I should have said he would be, very sorry ; perhaps angry ; but he seems to take it more contentedly than I could have supposed. He wanted you to be a doctor, and "come after him ; there's no doubt of that ; and perhaps if you'd known exactly on which side your bread was buttered, you 'd have made up your 126 _THE GAYWOKTHTS. mind to ; but children always manage to drop the buttered side down, and seem to like it all tho better ; and if, as he says, your whole heart is bent on this thing, instead, he 's glad that you should tell him, honestly. I dare say he '11 get reconciled. Es- pecially, if you show him you can stick to your choice, now you 've made it" *' No danger but I '11 do that," said the boy. " He knows, at any rate, there's nothing mean spirited in your motives," said Aunt Jane, encouragingly ; " and I will say, — for it 's as well to look on the bright side when a thing is settled, — that it may appear better to the rest of the world, perhaps, than if you hung round, all your life, dependent on what he could do for you ; being, you know, Gershie, no blood relation, aftej all." Wherever the current sprang from that ran in the boy's veins, it tingled a little, swiftly and sharply, as Aunt Jane said this ; and a sudden quickened perception startled him with a glimpse at the depth of her meaning. Nobody had evor reminded Gershom, in plain words, before, that he did not belong, by claim of nature, to them whose love and care he had received, and to whom he had returned the love, and such service as he could render, for all those years of his young life ; and the reminder thrust him off, for the first time, from his unquestioning reliance. Truly, life and death are in the power of the tongue ! It would have irked him sorely, now, after those few words, to go back to the old place again, and make his home there, if he had not already chosen otherwise. Something brought back to his mind, also, associated with these, those other words Aunt Jane had used, that evening when they talked together in the parlor window at twilight. " That depends on what there is to go back for. People must think what is for their interest." She could talk both ways, then ? Or did her words tend two ways ? They touched him with a like feeling ; a feeling that became now, all at once, quite definite. She was so ready to " look at the bright side, now all was settled ! " She had been apparently so displeased when the plan was first made known to her, that very morning ! What did Aunt Jane mean ? Bid she approve or disapprove ? Was she, as he used to say of her fine notions and manners, in his rude honest childhood, all a sham? He drew away, a little from her side towards the curbstone, as these thoughts ran through his mind ; he drew away yet further, in spirit ; as he had never drawn himself from human soul before. The first chill of intimate distrust had touched him, with a shiver. In this world there must be offences ; but woe to that one by whom the offence first cometh ! It was a hard day's journey, then, from the city to Hilbury; ailE EXPECTANT SYSTEM. 127 and the stage that " connected" with the trains to and from Selport run up and down on alternate days ; meeting the afternoon " down train " on Monday, and waiting for mail and passengers by Tuesday morning's " up." So Gershom was to report himself aboard the Pearl on Monday ; sign his shipping articles, and go with his unelc to get his " protection," and his sea rig; and on Tuesday, make his hasty journey to say good-by, returning on Wednesday ; since to put it off till Friday would be too late. The Pearl would prob- ably sail on Thursday or on Friday morning at farthest. So the plan stood until at noon on Monday ; when Mr. G-air and Gershom, returning together to the counting-room, from the Custom House, found Captain Burley waiting there. " I think, sir," said he to Mr. Gair, " that we could clear to- morrow as well as not, and be off next morning, if this weather holds. We must look for a change at the new moon ; and a day's start, with such a wind as this, might make a week's difference in the voyage. " That 's true,'' rejoined the merchant. " Can Peterson manage it?" " He says so, if those last fifty bales get down in time." "I'll see to that. Come in to-morrow at ten, and I'll have your papers ready. I guess we '11 get her off. — But, hallo ! here 's this youngster. What are we going to do about you ? " " Time and tide wait for no man," said Captain Burley, good- humoredly. " Nor a good vessel, when she 's ready for sea, with a fair wind. I suppose it must be 'go or stay ' with him. Are you sailor enough to say ' go,' and write your good-bys? That is, if you must have anything to do with them. I never do. Just take my hat, and walk off ; and they never know when it 's the last time." The child and the man struggled together with Gershom at that moment. He was boy enough to yearn for his mother's kiss before he went ; he was too much a man to shrink from what he had voluntarily chosen. He was sailor enough, or it seemed so, then, to feel that he could not let the beautiful Pearl go down that blue horizon, leaving him behind. •• I suppose there would n't be much chance of her not sailing ? " he asked. " Not much, I guess, if Captain Burley has made up his mind." "Then I say 'go,'" said Gershom, with steady tone and eye, ind a tender curve of lip that in no way weakened, but rather Jrew a dash of emphasis below his word. „ " You 're the sort. Come aboard at nine, on Wednesday," said the Captain. f 128 THE OAYWOETHYSi On Tuesday, two letters crossed each other between Selport and Hilbury. Gershom had written to his mother on Monday evening, saying how it was, and that he must bid good-by so, or relin- quish the voyage for which all_ his preparations were now made ; saying this ia a sturdy, matter-of-fact way on paper, while, his hand went up from the very writing to brush away a tear his mother might not know of. Manly words, with a child's home- sick tenderness at heart. He thanked his grandfather for his consent and help ; and, after that word of Aunt Jane's, could not forbear adding that " now he was put in the way of fulfilling this great wish that he had had so long, he felt sure he need never again be any trouble or anxiety to them at home ; he could make a place and an independence for himself in the world ; which was what he ought to be able for, after all that had been done for him in the past." These words, of a proud gratitude, touched the good Doctor a little sorely. Mrs. Vorse wrote a letter to her step-sister, on Monday, which she sent down to Winthorpe by a private hand. It came into Sel- port by Tuesday's evening mail, and Mr. Gair received it at the office, on his way home at nine o'clock, from a meeting upon a reference case. Gershom had gone up to bed when he came in and handed it to his wife. " Anything special ? " he asked, as Mrs. Gair glanced down the pages. . ". no," Jane replied. " Pretty much, I suppose, what she has written to Gershom himself. Motherly directions ; she wants me to see to this and that for him which she can't be here to see to herself. Nothing, I believe, but what has been done." " I suppose they 've been looking for him, to-night ; it '11 be considerable of a disappointment." " Ye s," said Mrs. Gair, absently. Her eye had fallen upon this little postscript to the letter. "Of course we shall expect him up to-morrow. If it wasn't for that, I don't think we could have consented at all. Tell him this. I must see him again ; and his grandfather will take it almost harder than I, not to say good-by to him. Don't let him, on any account, be prevented from coming, if he has not left for home before this reaches you. To tell you the truth, Jane, though there is no need for any special worry, I don't think the Doctor seems quite so smart as common , this spring. I can see he 's a good deal down-hearted about letting Gershom go, though ho makes no opposition ; and I can't help being afraid it may wear upon him." • Mrs. Gair put the letter in her pocket. She went round, pres- THE EXPECTANT SYSTEM. 129 ently, setting back the chairs, and looking to the window fasten- ings, for the night. Fastening something else, also, back in her own knowledge, for the over-night, at least. Should she tell Gershom, in the morning, of this that his mother had written ? She would not decide within herself that she should not ; she would consider. Neither would she show the whole letter to her husband, and ask him what ought to bo done. Ah, that might decide it too precipitately ! So she went to bed, first laying the letter in a little side drawer of her bureau, among others that had come from home. With the dark hours, came thoughts and misgiving. She hardly dared withhold this word from the boy. She wished Prue had not written so foolishly, throwing such responsibility upon her. She had been so resolved to do nothing in this matter, which had ripened itself so beautifully to her wishes. The "expectant" system had hitherto worked so well ! In the morning, she was braver. Her judgment was cool, and asserted itself. She knew best, being here upon the spot, what was best to be done. Prue had written in ignorance of the actual cir- cumstances. There had been no idea that the vessel was to sail so soon. She had got Gershom's letter, by this time, bidding good- by, and explaining it all. The thing had been settled ; how absurd it would be to unsettle it all, again ! The boy would be good for nothing, if he were balked of this voyage, and sent home now. And, of course, it would be only cruel to give him a discomfort to go away with ! She knew very well, in her secret heart, that if Gershom Vorse had read those words, even at the last moment, he would not have gone away. Bitter as it might have been, he would have waited. " It's very hard," said Aunt Jane to herself, as she went down stairs to the breakfast, that was to be somewhat earlier than usual. Gershom's sea-chest stood inside the front door. A carriage was to come at half past eight. " It 's very hard," thought the lady, " to be placed in such a position. I daresay, whatever I do, they '11 blame me. But I can only act as I think is for the best, under the circumstances. And then, my conscience will be clear." She thought it for the best to tell Gershom, as he rose from the table, — the poor fellow's appetite would have been quite spoiled, had she mentioned home news before, — that shg had heard again from his mother, chiefly in reference to the little matters of arrange- ment and provision for the voyage, "which," she said, "have all been made, I believe, very much as she suggests. You left out those four new linen shirts, didn't you? Your mother speaks of that." 130 THE GAYWORTHYS. " Yes," Gershom said. " The new shirts were in the valise that was to go back to Hilbury." He stood still, an instant, as if waiting to hear if there were any more particular message ; I think he hardly dared trust his voice to ask ; but nothing more was said. And that was all he heard about his mother's letter. I have no doubt Mrs. Jane Gair's conscience, after this wise and prudent action, in the hard position she found herself placed in, was quite clear. People have their moral idiosyncrasies, which must always be taken into account. The Pearl sailed that day at twelve o'clock. At the same hour, the stage from up-country was reeling down the hill into Baxter's Mills village, the horses coming in upon their customary gallop. Inside was an old gentleman, who had not been so far from home before in ten years. Going down, by the train, to Selport. No other than our simple-hearted, splendid- souled Hilbury doctor. He would try for it. Vessels did n't always. sail on the day fixed. There was fog in the hills this morning ; and there might be — who could tell ? southeast wind and a coming storm down there on the coast. Mahomet could n't come to the mountain ; the mountain would reverse the proverb, and come down to Mahomet. He had reasoned so with " the girls," at home, last night, when the letter had come that set them at first looking in each others' faces with a blank, utter disappointment. There was only a chance ; and Prue had best not encounter the fatigue, for the hope of it. But the doctor would go. If it were only to see her cast-off from the wharf, and shout a good-by, as the brig dropped down the harbor, it would be something ; or to go out from the Point, maybe, in a boat, and speak her below. Vessels lay off, all night, and for days, at anchor, often, in the fogs that come up at this season. So he packed his portmanteau before he went to bed, and one of the farm boys drove him down to the Bridge in the morning, to take the early stage. And the cars rattled and crashed along their level, shiniDg grade, as if they could overtake anything. The swift motion ex- hilarated the old Doctor, and gave him a charming childlike confi- dence. " You came up on the train this morning? " says he to the conductor. " Ticket ! " says the conductor to an oblivious passenger oppo- site, with a little backward touch of the left hand while nodding a reply to the Doctor on the right. * " Which way was the wind, down there ? " asks the old man,' anxiously. * THE EXPECTANT STSTEM. 131 Conductors get used to all kinds of queer questions, and answer them usually, if answerable, with a mechanical politeness, not interesting themselves greatly to follow out or piece together the indicia they offer to human histories. " Getting a touch of cast, I believe. This weather won't hold long. — Ticket, sir ? " and passed on. Dr. Gayworthy was quite certain, now, that he should see his boy. The train came into the station at dusk. The wind was sharp east, sure enough, and the smell of the salt water came up into the streets. The Doctor caught a cab, or the cabman caught the Doctor, and he and his portmanteau were whirled up to Hill Street. Jane Gair and her husband were sitting down to tea in the back parlor. The bell rang, and somebody came straight in, -without a question. " Jane ! Where 's the boy ? " " Father ! You here ? Why, — the Pearl sailed to-day at noon." A look, as of ten years suddenly added, fell over the good Doctor's face. Its lines dropped from their eager hopefulness into a strange, weary, dreary relinquishment. He set down his port- manteau, which he had brought straight into the room with him, and turned round to look for a chair. " I did n't think she would be sure to get off. — I'm very tired," said he, slowly, first finding out his fatigue now, and speaking as Mith the voice of another man. They gave him his tea and answered his few questions, all about the Pearl, and the boy, and when and where from they might first hope to hear of him, and pretty soon afterward he went up to bed. Into the same room where Gershom had slept last night ; swept, and aired, and made up with fresh linen, since then ; as rooms are, out of which people have died and beep borne away. And there the good, great-hearted' old man lay ; in the sleep- lessness of age in a strange place, — with all his strange, sad, disap- pointed thoughts ; and heard the city bells clang out to each other, hour after hour, as Gershom had heard them, that night when he could not sleep for thinking of all the brave, beautiful things that men had done in the world ; and for the boy-longing to go forth also, and be doing. Leagues down, already upon the Atlantic, laughing at the fogs that lay gathering behind her along the coast, the good brig, her sails bravely set, making the most of what faror-the wind had for her, was fairly away upon her voyage, speeding on towards the pleasant weather. And on her deck, standing his first watch, look- ing out under the stars for the first time, with an awed surprise, upon the restless and unmeasured sea, walked the boy of the hills ; 132 THE GAYWORTHYS. his heart yearning back to them secretly, with a great longing and love ; a wish that he might once more have gone there to say good- by; an apprehensive questioning whether all should be as it was, if he should come back safely and go home to them again by and by. So these two were separated. Separated also by something more than the leagues of salt water that lay between them to-night. A thought had been put into the mind of each that lessened perhaps no love, but that taught each to feel for the first time that he must learn to do without the other. The boy would be henceforth independent, even of ready kindness, from the friend who was no " blood-relation ; " upon whom he could have no legit- mate claim. The old man saw that he could no longer hold to himself the young life that sprang restlessly forth to its own place amsog the activities of the world, and would not fall obediently into a prepared round. " He would go ; there was nothing else for it," Jane had said. "I don't think anything whatever could have held him back." It almost seemed as if he had gone without a pang, or a thought of those behind. " Yes, yes ; it's the way of the young ; " said the gentle Doctor, and submitted. Jane Gair slept very well to-night ; after she had got over her little excitement of surprise at her father's coming. Why not ? She had done nothing. These two hearts — these two lives — had drifted away from each other ; she had only stood by, and looked on at what had happened. I assisted once at a " table- tipping ; " we were all novices, to be sure ; there was no " developed medium " among us ; we wanted the table to move, and move it did, at last, apparently by no physical agency ; we rested the tips of our fingers upon it, and waited ; and so, by degrees," it travelled" across the room, we following ; but somebody among, us by and by, when we came to talk the wonder over, was constrained candidly to confess, that " she might have pushed, — a little." I think human watching and waiting for the unfolding of circumstance to its wish, is often of this sort, precisely ; and that a great deal of will works itself out at the finger-tips, — iftaay be with the best of us. It is, perhaps, hard to say at what point strong desire becomes responsible. "Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life." . CHAPTER XV. A SEARCH ; AND ODYLLIC FORCE. Db. G-avworthy had nothing to stay for in Selport. He had no curiosity to "look about the city," as his daughter and her hus- band would have persuaded him to do. He had not seen it as I said for ten years past ; and it had grown, as New England cities were growing, in those comparatively early days of railroads ; and there was doubtless much to see ; but in all its crowded area there was nothing left that the Doctor cared for, now, outside his daughter's dwelling. And his country patients would be waiting for him at home. So at nine o'clock the next morning, in a drizzling, soaking, sulky rain, he bestowed himself and his port- manteau again in the northward train, and was steamed away ; touching and pausing, now and then, on outskirts of the towns that, twenty years ago, were quiet villages, through which the old road lay, along whose windings he had used to drive when he made his infrequent journeys southward. He gave his ticket silently to-day when the conductor came his round. I doubt if the official knew him for the same man who had asked him yesterday about the way of the wind, with the eager look of a boy questioning his elders of the probabilities of weather, upon which some rare hope or pleasure hangs contingent. He felt dull to-day, — the good old Doctor, — languid in body and dispirited in soul. The miles were long to him. He was not hungry when he came to Baxter's Mills. He took "a cup of tea, and a morsel of some food that lay nearest, and sat waiting in his place in the coach, when the other passengers, after their more prolonged refreshment, came clambering in. All the rest of the day the slpw, ponderous vehicle went tilt- ing and lumbering and creaking on, up into the hill-country; and the persistent spring rain came down; and everything dripped outside and steamed within, and smelt of wet leather and damp overcoats : and at seven o'clock a chance wagon, hired at the Bridge, set down at the Gayworthy Farmhouse a pale, 12 134 THE GATWOETHYS. chilled, exhausted old gentleman, with nothing to tell his sur- prised ' women folks ' but that they might get him some hot tea and put him to bed ; for that he 'd had the life pretty well jolted and drenched out of him ; and the boy was gone after all." Two days after they sent to Winthorpe for a brother physi- cian ; and a letter went down again to Selport, on Monday, from Joanna to Jane: "Father. had taken a violent cold, and wa3 threatened with a congestion of the lungs." Dutiful Jane packed a trunk, took Say with her, and came up to Hilbury by the Tuesday's stage. I have no desire to lead you through a whole chapter of sus- pense, for the mere sake of it. Dr. Gayworthy, though very ill, did not die. At the end of a week, Mrs. Gair and Say went back to Selport, leaving him, as the country saying is, " on the mend- ing hand." Mrs. Gair felt no wish to prolong her stay : it was too early for her regular yearly visit, and there was all her own and Say's summer sewing to be done ; besides, apart from the anxiety and dulness of a sick house, it had not been- altogether an agreeable sojourn for her, this time, at home. Prue had asked her, plainly and straightforwardly, if Gershom had gone before her letter came, and whether she had told him of its' contents. Jane Gair never told a lie. She had learned all about Ananias and Sapphira ; and the fire and brimstone ; and George Wash- ington and his hatchet ; and " Has my darling told a lie ? " and all the rest that well-taught children knew in her day, long before she was as old as Say. She had read Mrs. Opie afterwards, in whose stories every variety of liars got surely caught and appro- priately punished ; and though she could live as false a life, in her small, protected way, as ever a woman did live, — though there was not a day of it all, perhaps, when she did not painstakingly put forth some other motive than the real one for her doing, — ■ she shrank, with an in-drilled instinct of safety and decency, from deliberate, palpable falsification in word. " Why, no," she said. " I thought if you yourself had known just how it was, you would not have written so. His shipping papers were signed ; and the whole thing was settled : and the Pearl was to sail the next morning. I knew you did not mean for him to give up the voyage ; and it was no use making him unhappy." " 1 meant exactly what I said." I always do," said Prue shortly; and there she dropped the subject : and while Jane remained, she spoke no further word to her of Gershom. The mother knew she had been tricked of her boy. She knew that Jane knew she never intended to consent to such a departure ; that it was with a sud- A SEAECH; AND ODYLLIC FOKCE. 135 den th6ught of its possibility, that slie had finished her letter late that Monday afternoon, and walked over to Jaazaniah Hoogs's with it, that he might post it for her in "Winthorpe the next morning before the mail went down. This knowledge lay between them, and it was enough. Mrs. Gair felt far from comfortable, even when that immediate danger to the Doctor was over, and she could say to herself, that " no great harm had come of it, after all." Come of what? What had her conscience been afraid of, after all ? The Doctor got well. That is, he did not die. But it was the first break in his fine old constitution. After this, " he must be careful ; " a new text for the hearty, self-forgetful farmer-physician. A lung-attack, at any time of life — certainly when the threescore years and ten are passed — can hardly leave a man exactly where it found him. And as Prue had said, he had " been a little slim, before." He did not stouten much as summer came on. The haying was hard for him ; he missed Gershom in that, and in everything ; he came home from his round of visits, in the sultry weather, languid, and exhausted, and silent; and when Jane came up again in August — making her visit at a later season than usual, because of having been there in the spring, and also that Say might be in Hilbury in huckleberry time, — she saw that her father had changed ; had aged ; that he began to look a little broken. But it was now three months since the Pearl had sailed, and he made that unlucky journey, and fell ill after it. She did not choose to connect this with the other ; or to see that circumstances had moved on to this result, through any remote " pushing" of her own. She " couldn't help feeling anxious about father," she said to her sisters. But she had, at the same time, another little secret anxiety, which she said nothing about. It occurred to her now and then to wonder if certain matters remained just as they had been on that night in June, more than three years ago. It happened strangely that she was put one day in the direct way of finding out. Joanua and Kebecca had gone from home, to a sewing society, taking Say with them. Prue had withdrawn to her own room, where she was safe, according to precedent, for an hour to come. The Doctor had been summoned, just before dinner, to a patient four miles off, and had taken a hasty meal and departed. Mrs. Gair having no new dress to put on to-day that the Hilbury ladies had not seen, found herself unequal to the fatigue of a toilet and a half-mile walk. So she sat with a book, — very light summer reading, — just inside the open front door, enjoying the cool breeze that swept up under the maples. 13(5 THE GAYWOItTHYS. A barefooted boy, on a bare-back horse, rode suddenly over the turf slope before the white gate, and with a touch of his dusty toes to the top rail, made a single spring from the beast's back to the grass within the fence, and walked quickly up toward the door- stone. "The Doctor sent this, and this," said he to Mrs. Gair; "and wants what he's written for." " The leathern case at the right hand, in the middle drawer of my study table." This was one " this ; " the other was a bunch of keys. Mrs. Gair rose quietly, and entering her father's little room, procured the case, and came back with it to the messenger. The keys she put in her pocket. " That is all," she said. *' You may go." The boy departed ; over the fence, and upon the uncaparisoned steed, as he had come ; sticking his heels into the creature's rough sides, and larruping its neck with the bridle-end, till it broke into a wild canter. Mrs. Gair sat still a few minutes after he had gone. She had first dropped the keys into her pocket, with only the thought of holding them safe ; joined, perhaps, with an indefinite feeling that leads people of a certain temperament to cling instinctively to possession ; even of what can be only temporarily and uselessly in their keeping.. But, presently, something darted across her mind. Among these, was the key to the panel-cupboard. Prue was up-stairs, asleep. She was alone, in all this part of the house. She should never have a better — perhaps another — chance. Mrs. Gair sat reading on down the page, comprehending never a word. Thinking, while the type lay in meaningless lines before her eyes, whether she should do this thing or not. When she came, to the bottom of the leaf, she laid down the book. All still and solitary, through the house, and away out down the fields. Noth- ing to interrupt. Why should she uot look into the old cupboard once more, and among its relics of time past? She bethought herself that the odd volume of Cecilia, which she could not find about the house, might have got laid away there. There were old. books, or used to be, upon its upper shelf. Mrs. Gair's was a mind that could not be single-motived, even to itself. Tor such, the devil is always ready with his double reasons. The panel door slid back with its old rumble ; the earthquake that Say had heard before ; softened by the care with which Jane handled it, but still sufficiently audible, or sensible, perhaps, in the silent, echoing hou3e, and along the old timbers attuned to every a search; and odyllio force. ' 137 long-accustomed thrill. Jane must be quick. Prue might notice, and come down. At this moment, the odd volume of Cecilia was not thought of. The faded letter-case lay there ; back, upon the second shelf, with a worn leather wallet, and bundles of yellow, dusty papers, ancient, and mostly useless. Jane held it in her hand, and listened. No sound. She untied the green ribbon, and opened the case. There were two pockets. The upper and princi- pal one, ample with inlet and once curiously-folded gores, stretched and bulged, now, with long use, still holding abundant contents. The other, a simple doubling, laid flat within the cover ; protruding from which she saw the edges of a paper somewhat fresher than the rest. Not what she sought for. She remembered that well. It had been only a half sheet, twice folded. This presented multiplied thicknesses. She drew it out to look behind. This was what her father had held in his hand, that night, and replaced with the one newly written. She turned it over. It was superscribed and dated. Ten years back. " My last Will and Testament." There was no time to unfold it. She heard a slight movement, somewhere, above. Was this the last ? Ten years ago, was before Prue and her great boy had come home here. She put her fingers in the narrow pocket where it had been. Nothing there ; where she had surely seen her father slip the second writing, behind the other. Something crackled a little, under her touch, though, as she felt along. As a new, stiff lining might have done ; only this was an old thing, that had done crackling, long ago. In the back, just above* this lesser pocket, was a slit, worn in the brocade that had faced it once so richly. Something had got in, or been hidden, here. She put the tips of her fingers under, carefully. Suddenly she cared not to investigate further. She chose to tell herself that she knew nothing. And that it was best she should know nothing. And yet she did know, just as well as you and I do, what it must be that lay there, and how, with the dim candle-light, and her father's old eyes, it must have happened. But she would not look. Was it odyllic force, or a voluntary pressure of the finger fip that " pushed a little " upon what lay within, and crowded it down yet further, beyond discovery ? Prue's step was distinct, up-stairs, now. The folded paper was put back, — the pocket heed- fully smoothed down, pressed close, — the ribbon retied ; and when Prue came in, a minute after, all in the lower portion of the cup- board looked undisturbed, and Jane was standing on the high round of the heavy old mahogany chair by which she had climbed, and was industriously rummaging among the shiny-covered leather- bound books and" musty papers on the topmost shelf. She heard Prue coming, well enough ; but she never turned. She was in no 12* m 138 THE GAYWORTHYS. hurry. Why should she startle, or be afraid ? She would just as soon Prue saw her there, as not. And here, good fortune that it was, quite justifying her procedure, — under her hand lay the very thing she had come to look for ! The second volume of Cecilia, that had been gone from the up-stairs bookcase so long. Prue entered just in time to hear her exclaim with delight. " How came you there, Jane ? And where did you get father's keys?" "He sent them home just now, for something that he needed from the table-drawer. And it came into my head to look here for this volume that I wanted so. I'm so pleased! I haven't read Cecilia since I was fifteen." It was said with all the simplicity of fifteen. Buj; when Jane was so very simple, good Prue, with all her own honesty 1 , that had used to make her blind, had come of late to feel, vaguely, that there might be something unspoken. She reproached herself for this, and thought of the first verse of the seventh chapter of Mat- thew ; yet the sensation would come. " I don't think he likes those places meddled with. I never go there," "Oh, I daresay you're scrupulous. But with me, it's rather different." Jane never failed to imply her rights, when occasion offered, as born daughter of the house. Prue did not reply. They heard Priscilla, Huldah's eousin and successor, moving about in the great kitchen to which the door stood open. Prue went out. Jane rolled the panel to its place again ; turned the key ; dropped the bunch into the table-drawer ; and went off with her old book ; humming a tune. A few minutes later, Priscilla came in, softly, with round eyes, and looked wonderingly about. She had heard, in her turn, the earthquake ; and the little talk, also, between the step-sisters. These things impressed themselves upon her young mind, not over- occupied as yet with the urgencies of life, as those things do to which future impressions are to come and mate themselves. CHAPTEK XVI. INTO POET. Gershom Vorse was standing bis last night-watch at sea, upon the Pearl's homeward voyage. We left him upon his first. He has seen since then what a sailor's life is. He has found out a good deal of those eleven men who have been his shipmates ; who disgusted him so at the outset, when they came reeling and rollicking on board, on the fair May morning when they sailed out of Selport. He has been half round the world with them, and back again. He has laid out with them on the yards, in stormy nights, reefing and furling sail. He has heard a prayer, or what was born a prayer, once, but has coarsened on rough lips and with irreverent usage to something little better, seemingly, — God knows, — than an ordinary oath, uttered in one breath, when they " tumbled up," at the midnight call, to face flood and fury ; and downright cursing in the nextf, as they struggled at their task aloft, clinging for dear life to the swaying foot-rtipe, "fisting" the wet and bellying canvas. He has sat on the sunny forecastle deck in pleasant wea- ther learning to make duek trowsers and listening to long yarns. He has lodfced, so, into strange lives. They had had " all sorts," as there are apt to be in a crew of a dozen men. There was the Italian, Joe, who always crossed himself before he went aloft in a gale, and swore hardest when he got there ; who used to say in his broken English, wagging his head at his jolly companions, — jolly, so often, at his expense — " Ah ! you laugh now ! Vera well ! You laugh at me talk bad English, an' pray to Virgin Mary, an' San Peter. Vat you do when you go up dere, aloft one day, by 'm by ? San Peter, he '11 sit at de gate, wid de keys in he hand; He look over, an, see you comin', and he no let you in. He say, ' Vast, dere ! Go below ! Vat you do here, you 'a-retic ? ' Den by 'm by, you see Joe come along. An' San Peter, he look over de gate, an' he say : ' Ah, dat you, Joe ? Glad to see you. How you do, Joe ? Valk in, ship- mate ! Vat you take to drink ? ' " There was Jerry, also, from the Vineyard. He had another 140 THE GAYWOBTHTS. sort of religion, picked up at a camp-meeting; let drop, his comrades used to say, by some better fellow. Sneaking Jerry, they called^him. He sneaked, and shirked, and snivelled ; and the old salts despised him, and " damned his eyes," as they did " old horse." This was all the religion they had — to speak of — in the forecastle of the Pearl. What had they, then ? Well, there was sailor's fortitude ; sailor's courage ; sailor's patience ; a rough sort of magnanimity ; a spirit of share and share alike ; one scorning to be better off than another, even in the matter of lobseouse and salt junk; there was coarse wit; shrewd invention; there was the strange bond of fellowship between men who, making a little world with each other now, might in a few months scatter to the ends of the earth, never beholding each others' faces again ; or who might, with a moment's warning, go down together to a common death. Here among these, for eight months, Gershom had lived. They had had a voyage of ordinary length and ordinary incident. There had been nothing high-heroic ; only the heroism of every day endurance and exposure ; and the glamour was a little gone. The second mate was a vulgar fellow ; the chief officer a martinet ; the Captain was Captain Burley still ; a noble man upon the quar- ter-deck ; but between the quarter-deck and the forecastle there was an infinite and impassable distance. Captain Burley and Gershom Vorse would be taking tea together soon perhaps at Uncle Beuben's table, talking over sea, life, telling and listening again to sea stories ; but for eight months one had been served his solitary meals in state by the steward in the cabin, and the other had fetched his kid from the galley; and words hacUbeen rare between them, beyond what the vessel's service required. Gershom had seen the great sea, and the far, beautiful islands ; he had been among the palms and orange groves ; he had beheld unrolled a corner of the grand glowing panorama of the earth ; he longed still for more ; yet it had not all been a vision of grandeur and beauty, — a sublimity of scene and act; he was eager now for his home again ; for a breath of the New England hills ; eager, as if he had never fancied himself weary of them ; never felt that they hemmed him round and held him in. It was a bright, mild January night ; the stars were out clear, and the wind fair ; sails set, I shall not tell you what, nor how, for I have small knowledge of technical seamanship, — bat all safe, and as it should be ; the man at the wheel steering his steady course north-northwest, and the watch smoking and singing and skylarking on the forecastle, keeping themselves warm with antics INTO POET. 141 and jokes. Gershom walked the deck, up and down apart, in the waist. He had little in common with the rest of the crew, to- night, save the common joy of nearing port. He knew nothing of their haunts, nothing of their shore life here in the city, though he could guess somewhat of it from their yarns and chaff. So soon as he should step from the deck of the Pearl, he would be the " boy of the hills " once more, as thoroughly as if he had never seen salt water. He was thinking of the Hilbury stage, and hoping the brig might get in before to-morrow night, that-the next day might find him on his journey to the farm. Ned Blackmere — English Ned — stood apart, also, leaning on the rail, looking gloomily over upon the water. English Ned was never jolly, coming into port. But then, when was he jolly? There was a fierce kind of spirit that waked up in him, when they sailed away out of sight of land, as if he had escaped something ; and he fluDg himself into his seaman's duty, as if his life lay there ; but he was never cheery and' light-hearted. His gloom and re- serve, strange always for a sailor, took'on a heavier cloud, like the fog of the soundings, on approaching the homeward end of a voy- age. He had sailed with the Pearl for six years past. They called him 0],d Barnacle, for sticking to her so. He loved the brig, I think, though he believed that he loved nothing. Gershom had never heard this man spin a yarn since they came on board to- gether. Nobody knew much about him. He was a fearless, skil- ful seaman ; a sure hand at the helm, or at an earing, in bad weather ; but a moody messmate, caring for nothing but his pipe, from which he was nearly inseparable. Gershom came close up to him, in his pacing to and fro, each time he turned forward. There was a spring in the boy's step, and a flinging up of the head, that bad gone out of the man's bearing forever. " Ye 're walking it off well to-night, youngster," said old Bar- nacle, turning suddenly, and clenching his pipe with his teeth. " Seems to help the brig along, don't it? " "Well, I'm restless," replied Gershom, pausing at the end of his beat. " She 's going a good streak, ain't she ? We '11 be in by to-morrow night, they say." " You 've something to be glad of, then ? What have you got to go to when ye 're in ? " He would not have asked this of those older men, who talked of sweethearts and wives, or laid their plans for a sailor's holiday time, with full pockets and a gay city to empty them in, — he knew, or thought he knew, what all that was worth ; (ind he turned away bitterly froitt the merry forecastle group to the black 142 THE GATWOETHYS. water swashing by the sides, and to his solitary pipe: but he asked it of this boy, who had turned away also, — asked it with something between wonder and a sneer. " I've got home ! " cried the young sailor, with a warm out- burst. He was so glad to have it to say out. He had been want- ing to sing it, to shout it; but he could not say it to those men. "I've got my mother and my grandfather, up in the country, among the hills. And, before that, I 'vc got friends in Selport ; Uncle Eeuben, — that is, Mr. Gair, you know, — and my little cousin Say. Where are you going to, Ned ? " He had been beguiled, suddenly, from the off-hand roughness learned at sea, that disguises everything with an indifference or turns it off with a joke, to the simple sentiment of a child. The child-side of his nature was uppermost just now ; and, true to its impulse, he told all this to old Barnacle, as a six years' urchin tells all he has to tell upon the slightest questioning: and wound up l>y asking, — what nobody else on board would have dared to ask Ned Blackmere, — " Where are you going to, Ned ? " " To hell ! If you must know." It was as true a speech out of the man's secret heart as the boy's confidence had been. They had called each other out alike. " Stop ! you need n't go. Since we 've begun, we may as well talk on a bit." He took his pipe out of his mouth, saying this, and stood with his arms resting on the bulwark, and his head bent, the pipe held carelessly in his fingers, and his hand hanging idly down. " You 've got a home, you say : I suppose you think so. You '11 find out sometime that there is n't any such thing. There 's places where people stay together awhile ; but it 's for what they can get of each otHer, and because they can't help themselves. All at once something turns up, and sets 'em adrift, and what becomes of your home then ? I 've seen it : I 've seen 'em go to pieces like a ship on a rock, — no two timbers held together. You 've got a mother ? Well, that 's something ; as long as it lasts ; but the real ones mostly die. I can just remember somebody that used to cuddle me up, and tuck me in bed, and tell me prayers to say ; but after that I don't remember anything but kicks and cuffs, and drink and misery. Then my father died ; and my father's brother cheated us out of what living there was left ; and my own brother cheated me out of what was more than living to me, or I was fool enough to think so ; and my sister made a disgrace of her- self, and broke the heart of an honest fellow as was my friend ; and I went knocking about the world, and it 's all made up of just the same stuff. I 've been all over it; and God ain't anywhere INTO PORT. 143 in it. If he was, he would n't let things be as I have seen 'em. I set out onee to plant a home of my own, and see if 't would grow ; but I married a she-devil, and I tell you we made hell ! My child never had a mother : it '3 dead ; and if God was any- where round, I 'd thank him for it. She overlaid it in the night ; she said she did. I knew she got tired of it ; and it made her mad wi' crying, — that and the gin. She did n't get stupid wi' 't, only devilish ; and the child lay smothered in the bed one morn- ing. That 's where my homo went to ; but I go back there yet, and halve my wages with her, when the brig 's in : and I 'm pre- cious jolly when we . come in sight 0' land, do n't you see ? " And his white teeth glistened through the darkness as he set them tight, and his lips drew up from them in a horrible scorn. He barely relaxcd*their clench, and thrust his pipe between them again, and so held it fast. " If I 'd gone my own way from the beginning, and never be- lieved in nobody, I 'd ha' done." These words forced themselves, as it wore, from locked jaws. " It 's all come 0' trusting and ex r peeting ; and the women 's the worst. They '11 hold you up the. most wi' trusting ; and they'll let you down the hardest, — ex- cept the real mothers, and they don't last. If you 've got a mother, boy, hold on to her ; but take care 0' your bones, and keep clear 0' the rest ! " Eight bells were struck as old Barnacle ended speaking ; the larboard watch was called ; and Gershom with his watchmates presently went belo'w : but this epitomized story of a dark life, that he had heard, went with him, and haunted him. He could not forget Blackmere's look. He could not forget what he had said, — " I 've been all round the world ; and God ain't anywhere in it." Should he, now that he had once come out from'the safety of the hills, ever reach a desolation like this ? Was this what must surely come of trusting and expecting? Was the great world, outside the shelter and the faith of his childhood, made up, even mostly, of stuff like this ? An unwholesome or unhappy life may toujh our own, and pass us by harmless, as disease may do our bodies, except for a predis- position which it mysteriously finds, and seizes upon. We gather to ourselves nothing that we have not already some faint unnoticed symptom of. A sudden distrust, that had passed over him long ago, — that since, he had hardly remembered, or dwelt upon, — a doubt of one who should have been his friend, — recalled itself to Gershom in a vague way now ; a feeling that he had also once known gave a holding point to this terrible history of a disappointed, utterly distrustful human soul, and grafted it, strange and fearful 144 TUB GATWOETHYS. as it was, to the boy's own life. His own little experience of an ill in human nature added to itself this blacker knowledge ; and the one verified the other. There was a glimmer whereby he could dimly comprehend this thing whereof he should have had no comprehen- sion yet. It should have been a mere marvel to him ; but it seized strong hold of him, and he could not shake it off. It was a putting of two and two together; with Gershom Vorse, toward the acquiring of that bitter science men call knowledge of the world. The lessons had begun longer ago than he reviewed them now ; in the old childish days, with their perceptions of the shams of life ; when Aunt Jane, with her fine city airs and fashions, had used to come to Hilbury ; when she and her friends and neighbors met with such a seeming of simple, eager gladness, undsrneath which was yet the seething of vainglory on the one side, and jealousy on the other ; when there were all sorts of quibbles and devices to get rid of lending Selport patterns, and painstaking contrivances to imitate them surreptitously ; triumphant displays and wrathful recognitions, disguised with airs of innocent simpli- city and bland acquiescence ; when people who Gershom believed had it in them to behave like pigs, minced little bits, and said " No I thank you," to be thought polite ; all this, as he saw or fancied he saw it, then had laid itself away within him, an early disgust, to color many an after estimate of life and the things thereof. Gershom Vorse, with his uncompromising sense of honesty, drawn with mother's milk and incorporated with the strong, un- yielding man -nature that was in him, was likely, unless something more divine and gracious should mingle and attune with it, to make a long quarrel of it with the world. The world ! Every soul of us knows a separate one. Over in- to each other's worlds, in a way we may look ; and our own may borrow from what lies about the borders of those that touch upon it ; but scarcely any two, however dear, inhabit literally one do- main, — have one identical range and region. What sort of world was little Sarah Gair feeling out into, with childish hands ; glancing into, with eager, often puzzled eyes ? It opened differently to her than it did to Gershom ; things that he was learning were as unknown to her as any concerns of another planet ; things were forcing themselves upon her, as real facts of life, that to him would be nothings. Compared with better and stronger things, they were as nothings doubtless ; yet they made up a certain sort of world for a certain sort of people, among whom Say was born and placed. They were the shape life took, just now at least, for her ; she had a mother not too wise ; and she was as yet only a little maiden of eleven years old. INTO TORT. 145 Sarah Gair oame homo from dancing-school, in the January dusk, at the very hour when the Pearl came sailing up the harbor. She had had her hair tied up in a new way, with ro'sc-colorcd rib ■ bons ; and this was the first day of wearing a bright brown silk frock with puffed sleeves and lace edgings, that Winny when she fastened it for her, had declared to be "the rale stylish thing, intirely," Yet somehow she had n't felt so fine, after all, as she expected. Pauline Topliff, wearing a blue dress, that just matched her eyes, and ribbons in her hair that matched the dress, had never onee spoken to her ; and had even declared, in a half aside, to Helen Semple, that she " could n't bear contrasts, or bran-new things ; and pink and brown were dreadfully vulgar." This weighed upon Say's heart, and even upon her conscience. She felt that she had, somehow, got with the wronggirls this af- ternoon, and that, if her mother knew, she would not like it. She supposed she ought to have stayed sitting by Pauline Topliff'a elbow, even after that elbow was very unceremoniously thrust for- ward, and a hint given that the sofa was crowded. It had been very comfortable in the corner, afterward, with Lucy Briggs, who had a new book of fairy stories, and who let her " look over." But she knew that it had -been all wrong. And yet the Topliff set would n'thave her. What was she to do ? She didn't understand why it was ; Pauline Topliff was very pretty ; and she danced the Gavotte beautifully ; she and Helen Semple, together ; and Say would have thought herself in heaven, almost, — so great was her spontaneous admiration, and so strong her instilled ambition, — if she could have once had Pauline's Topliff's arm thrown round her in the free girlish familiarity that Pauline showed to her es- pecial friends, and that Lucy Briggs and other girls, of a more accessible order, were quite ready to show to herself. But ever since that afternoon of her first overture, made dutifully, in the spirit of her mother's injunctions, when she tried to " get acquaint- ed" by offering half her book to Pauline, and the blue eyes had opened so very wide ; and such a surprised voice had exclaimed to the friend with whom the young lady immediately got up and walked off, " Did you ever hear of such a thing ? For a strange girl ! " — "it had been all in vain. Beyond a certain point, — an uncer- tain one, I should rather say ; since even a partial condescension depended on the caprice and convenience of the juvenile exclu- sives, — Say had never been able to reach. It was like the poor girl in the story, who could not find her way into the Enchanted Island. An invisible wall of adamant opposed her ; she advanced impetuously; she was thrown back ignominiously. Say went straight at the wall of adamant ; it was her nature to be impetu- 13 146 THE GAYWOKTHYS. ous; she showed plainly what she wanted ; it was the only way she knew how to try for it. So she seemed odd and awkward, and rude ; so failure was made more positively certain. So her little child-world puzzled and grieved her. She could not understand why things were so. But behind the child-world was the great grown-up world. This she knew absolutely nothing of. Selport — you observe — had its aristocracy. Of course. Every town and village on this continent that was a wilderness three hundred years ago, develops that, in its growth, by the inevit- able, occult law of human crystallization. Selport, at this time of which I write, was a half-grown city. More punctilious and tenacious therefore, concerning .its little dignities, as all half-grown creatures are, than it would be probably when it should get a little bigger. Why on earth Wilkins, who grew fat on nails and flatirons, twenty years ago, should contemn Simpkinswho is doing the same thing to-day, as fast as he can, is among the unac- counted for, but palpable facts in social science. The thing is, and always has been. There were families in Selport who sold all their nails and flatirons, their soap and candles, — a generation or two ago. All these knew each other 1 This was the circle born, not made. Into this, one must be born. Fresh comers from the unknown up-country, making the beginnings of new fortunes, and the nuclei of new circles, could not for very long hope to wheel into an orbit concentric with these. Simpkin3 must roll forth, full-orbed, from his nebulous obscurity, before Wilkins can be- hold him with the naked eye. The Gairs, pre-eminent in Hilbury, were in a nebula at Sel- port The whole object of their lives — Mrs. Jane's more es- pecially — was to find their way out, and begin to revolve as planets. It was slow work. With all her ambition, Mrs. Gair thought, at weary times, that she could almost give it all up, and relapse, contentedly, into chaos. I don't pretend that my analogy is complete ; a more perfect method obtains, doubtless, in the heavens, and the inchoate worlds are kept at safe distances from the established systems ; but in the social firmament it does sometimes happen that a little concrete luminosity, trembling on the edge of one of its nebulae, gets caught and drawn, once in a cycle or so, by some favoring attraction, to the outskirts of a sublime solar order. In such a case, it is for awhile, one of the most unhappy little objects in creation.. It is not quite sure of belonging anywhere. Some great Jupiter, or benignant Venus, sweeps along, and almost catches it iip, triumph- antly, into the place where it would be. But its own tremendous INTO POET. 147 forces bear the planet on, before the lesser orb can complete a perfect revolution, even as a satellite ; and so it oscillates fearfully, in peril of plunging between opposing and disturbing impulses, down awful gulfs of wreck and annihilation. I suppose creation must go on ; and it may bo dastardly to say so ; but I think, for my part, I would rather stay in the milkiest part of the Milky Way, forever. " I don't know the person." These words from certain lips in Selport, were irrevocable oblivion. Human nature would find its way, sometimes, though, for all that. Good-hearted little Mrs. Semple — indisputably of the "best set" — was in continual peril of loss of caste, through mentioning people whom Mrs. Top- liff " did n't know." She would have neighbors in the side street that turned down two doors from her own. Mrs. Topliff lived in a broader street than either, crossing the head of the first ; and her house, standing opposite the opening, took in range of its outlook the whole length between its blocks. This typified properly her social position of overlook and scrutiny. Mrs. Ssmple met the great lady one morning, walking down as she went up. " Oh, Mrs. Topliff! "Were you coming to mc, I wonder? I 'm so sorry. I 'vo just come from Mrs. Norris, round the corner. She ! s in such trouble, poor little woman ! Her eldest daughter, a sweet girl, ju3t my Helen's age, has died, after an illness of only four days. ■ Only think, what a blow ! — I'm going down town for her, now, to order the dear child's burial-dress, and the mourning. I'm so grieved for her." Thus far, Mrs. Topliff might have endured with only her chill look of well-bred, dignified patience, but when incautious Mrs. Semple, her whole mother's heart touched, went on to narrate some circumtances of the brief illness of this young creature, "just her own Helen's age," and the resistless tears stood in her eyes as she spoke, it became too much. " My dear," she interposed, with a freezing emphasis, " I don't know Mrs. N orris ! " " But you 're a mother ! " cried the other, with a startle of honest, womanly indignation. She forgot to feel guilty, as she sometimes did, at her own lapse from the restrictions of her. order. I wonder if by any chance it ever occurred to this woman, who was a mother, and who supposed herself a Christian, to think of a possible moment in the mighty future when a Voice more awful might say, " I never knew you 1 Go your way ! " I wonder if the thought of that higher Eecognition, or that 148 THE GATWOETHYS. unutterably fearful Ignoring, might not sometimes set at nought, even to such as they, the petty human dictum, for whose favoring utterance setting heart and soul upon the a,jm, women like Jane Gair were laboring. Laboring, — Mrs. Gair was, — and building up her own world about herself ; nor for herself only. This was the world her child was to feel out into, wonderingly, with innocent hands. A world of petty, false ambitions ; of mean subserviencies ; of self-degrading shames. A small consolation came to Sarah at the end of this daneing- school afternoon. If her mother had been at home to put her usual questions — " "What did you do? Who did you sit by ? " Say must have confessed, " I sat by Pauline Topliff a little while, and then I went and read a book with Lucy Briggs." But after- ward she could have added the salvo — "And then Lucy and I walked home with Helen Semple." She was almost sorry now for what 6he had been glad of before : that her mother was away, and that she should not be required to give account. It might be long before she should have as much to boast again. Mrs. Topliff had called at the school early, in her carriage, and taken Pauline away •with her ; and then Helen had picked up the book which Lucy and Say had left behind them on the seat when they went to join their class. Two things bring children at once to a common level — sugar-plums and fairy tales. A paper of bonbons had often been a temporary propitiation ; the story-book was irresistible. Helen condescended to linger on, even when the " bran-new " silk and ribbons came rustling and fluttering back, and, after a little timid hovering, settled themselves beside her. Lucy Briggs, in her dark merino, sat down, softly and simply, in the place she had left. She had been taught no mortifying ambitions, no false timidities. If Mrs. Gair could but have understood it, there was better chance in the world for Lucy Briggs, the wholesale grocer's daughter, than for the child of the merchant who brought home groceries in his own vessels from South America and the Indies. Lucy Briggs, in her plain, unpretending home, had a true woman for a mother. She was growing up in sweet, ladylike ways, unaware, with no especial thought about being a lady, at all. Here is where the two extremes meet ; the highest breeding, the purest refinement, the most undoubted position, would account for its being, if its unconscious feeling were ever rendered in words, much as Topsy did; " Don't know; 'specfc I growed." It is the half- way, restless, striving, self-sensitive state that is vulgar. Mrs. Gair had not mastered this secret yet. Helen Semple borrowed the book of Lucy Briggs, and offered, INTO PORT. 149 if she would walk home with her, to lend her the " Black Velvet Bracelet " in return. So Say got into the front cmtry of Judge Scmplo's house, and waited there five minutes. It had been a very praiseworthy thing, she thought, that had happened to her ; and she wished her mother were at home to know. A dear little dutiful, confiding girl was Sarah Gair ; she trusted in her mother's supreme wisdom ; the mother, — (thought of awe !) though she be but a fool, must needs, for a while, represent the Supreme Wisdom to her child . and Say's loyal little heart warmed at the hope of pleasing this worldly mother of hers, as few of our grown-up hearts, perhaps, warm at the thought of pleasing God. " Nov? make haste, Miss Sarah, darlint. Ycr late, and it 's moon-cakes there is for your tay to-night ; and take aff your fine silk gown, an' pit an yer ould one, and come down to the base- mint, like a good shild," said Winny, letting her in. " No," answered Say, " I shan't take off my dress at all. And you may bring the tea up stairs. And I want the chandelier lighted." "Arrah ! is it crazed ye are, shild? " cried Winny, aghast. " Not take aff yer bran-new silk gown whin it 's yer mother wud al- ways have ye pit back intil yer ould frock, an' it 's mussin it ahl ye '11 be, an' sorra ha'porth I can do till help it ! An' the tay up stairs, and the shandlcr lighted. Well, well, well, what '11 1 do at all?" " Do what I said," returned Say, with a dignity. " I don't like hran-new things. I want my dress to get mussed, a little. My things all stick out and crackle so. Nobody's else do. And I 've been to Helen Semple's, and there was nobody in the parlor but her father and mother, and the chandelier was lighted, and they never said a word to her about taking off her dress. I don't believe she ever does. Till she goes to bed, I mean. It 's only making believe to have things when you pull 'em off the minute you get home. And when the chandelier is never lighted. I 'm going to have things real. Now bring up the tea and the moon- cakes." And Say settled herself down very comfortably in the great arm-chair by the fire. " An' ye '11 never mind the shandler, like a good child? " " Of course I will," said Say, impatiently. " Don't make me tell you over again so many times. There, .take this, and get right up and light it now, — that's a good Winny," she added, coaxingly, as she discovered the demur in the girl's face. " If you don't, I shall ! " 13» 150 THE GAYWORTHYS. " Arrah ! but ye 're a quare one ! I shuppose I must jist do it for yees, or ye '11 be afthcr smashin' ahl tbe glasses ! Sorra know .1 know what's got intil yees the nigljj." The tea and the round short-cakes, christened "moon-cakes" years ago by Say, were brought up ; and she sat there in the bril- liant light, with her silk dress and her rose-colored ribbons, and made Winny wait upon her as scrupulously as if sh« had been a little princess. She felt, now, she was having things real. It was the truth of the child's nature rather than the foolish pride of it that indulged itself in this wise. " I wish I was n't all alone ! " she said to herself, after Winny had taken the tray down. " I wish some visitors would come. I wish I could have asked Lucy Briggs to come and stay all night." Say had few companions. Even by grown-up acquaintances, the Gair's home was comparatively, little visited. There had been a snubbing of some people who would have been neighborly, and a waiting for others who seldom or never condescended to appear. Mrs. Topliff was President of one or two charitable societies, which Mrs. Gair had joined. Once or twice, partly on some business, she had called. Mrs. Gair was always expecting the great lady to " drop in, socially," as, with civil surprise, she had received invitation to do. ' Meanwhile, Jane put on " Topliff airs " with Mrs. Briggs and Mrs. Norris, who might have been her friends. Their daughters, also, and others like them, who might have been intimate with Say, were set aside, when the child suggested either of them, with, — " Oh, I would n't ask her. "Why don't you in- vite this one, or that one, instead ? " This or that one would not have come. Say was too proud to acknowledge this in words, which she and her mother both knew, secretly, very well. It ended, therefore, in a stiff, cold, unsocial living ; a sad solitariness for little Say. " Perhaps the Pearl has got in to-day, and Gershie '11 come ! " Say felt, secretly, that it would be very nice if Gershom should come, and Captain Burley too, perhaps, and find her in her best dress, with the parlor lighted. " I 'm glad I kept it on. Only I can't go into the kitchen. I shall have to make Winny come up and sit here, and tell me a story." Whieh Winny was doing, an hour later, when the front door-bell rang, at last, and a voice, grown so deep and strong that Say, listening behind, hardly knew it for Gershom's, asked for Mr. Gair. » " He's gone away to Hilberry ; he and the mishtress ; but Miss Sarah's at home, an' it 's she that 's been expiotin' yees," said Winny, at the door. Then Say sprang out. INTO POET. 151 " Oh, Gershom ! I 'm so glad ! " But she paused when she saw the stout, manly-grown figure heart. She set down the bowl, into which she had just stirred salt and a teaspoonful of brandy ; she stood, looking into the coals, think- ing ; sending her soul out to meet the ehild. Away out upon the deep she had gone in spirit, day after day, night after night ; down upon the seacoast she had waited, thinking of the bright sails that should come up, some morning, in the winter sunlight, bringing her hope again ; to-day, somehow, she had not yearned forth so far ; she had thought of when he might be coming -on the homeward road, up from the busy city, into the white stillness of the hills ; and every now and then, let her be doing what she might, a joy that seemed hanging in the air would seize her sud- denly, with a sweet electric pang. Now — this moment — it was close upon her. Farther than the echo of those bells, she could not send her thought out ; but to the sound of them her pulse sprang restlessly ; so she set her bowl down, and stood there, listening, those few moments while their resonance lasted ; and then sud- denly, she turned, as by some swift magnetic impulse, and went out toward the door. Not knowing why. She would look down the road. She would feel what the weather was. She did ' neither. She looked no further than her boy's face, waiting for her there in the starlight. She felt no cold that came in with him. She folded him silently in her arms, and drew him in. Joanna came presently from the sitting-room, and found the two standing together on the kitchen hearth. An exclamation sprang to her lips ; but IJrue put her finger up, and the habit of the still house checked her. She gave him a glad greeting, quietly ; and would have gone away again, then, and left him to his mother. 1G0 THE GAYWOUTIIYS. But for the bowl of airowroot, Prue might have been glad to have it so ; as it was, she stopped her. " Never mind, Joanna; it is n't worth while ; the Doctor must have this while it 's fresh, and he takes it best from me." " Can I sec grandfather to night? " asked Gershom. " I wish you could," said" Prue, slowly and emphatically, "or else — I wish nobody besides need know that you are in the house!" " Why? " questioned Joanna quickly, in surprise. " I don't know," answered Prue, still with the same slow ear- nestness. " I can't always tell why I do think things. I don't know why I went and opened the door just now ; but I did ; and I couldn't have helped it; and Gershom was there." Prue was of too integral an honesty, perhaps, to understand the subtle shadows of doubt that warned her of a doubleness in another. But she had an,, uneasy feeling, although she did not care to define it, that if Jane knew of the boy's arrival, it would mix up things somehow ? that some untowardness would result ; either the old man would be sure to be unable for the meeting, or it would happen at some unfavorable moment. What Jane would have to do with this, she hardly thought ; she could not certainly have told. There are unspoken instincts of knowledge be- tween life and life, of which we can scarcely trace the growing up ; we only know, surely, that they are there. " Let me go up to your room, mother; you'll be able to come there presently, won't you ? I'd rather not see them all to-night." " There's no need of saying anything, if you don't choose," said Joanna to Prue. " The house is settled for the night, and it 's just as well to make no stir." Joanna, who hated so all intermeddling of " other folks," could well see how mother and son might long to be together, and have each other quite to themselves. This was all she saw. The same straightforward independence winch she would have used in her own behalf, she counselled in theirs. It was nobody's else busi- ness, if they chose to have it so, and nothing need be said. It was all quite reasonable, and right, and easy ; Joanna under- stood ; to-morrow it would be enough to say that Gershom had been tired, and had not cared to see them all at once ; and that the house was still, and so he had gone quietly up stairs ; and before this need be said at all, when his grandfather should wake in the early morning, in Prue's watch, if all were well, she might bring him in, and have the meeting over. But this was not quite after Prue's way for all ; and she felt like a smuggler, going up the end staircase to her own room, Gershom COMING. 1G1 following ; and -when she left Mm there, and turned away taking her bowl of arrowroot to the Doctor's chamber, where Jane sat, it was with a sensation foreign and intolerable to her nature. Prudence Yorse would never have made a general. She would have never been equal to any magnificent strategy : shg would have marched her men right up in face of the enemy, in broad daylight, and dared his guns ; and beaten him so, in fair fight, or not at all. She held her tongue as she came to the bedside, and Jane gave up her seat to her ; but she put a force upon herself to do it, be- cause, here, she must ; and she was glad when Jane moved quietly off and went away, while she should give the old man his gruel. Afterward, when she met her on the stairs, coming up, as she went down, she passed her quickly, — almost roughly, — still without a word. Jane shrugged her shoulders, and smiled a little as she went on. " Prue's in one of her fierce fits," she said to herself. It must be horribly uncomfortable." And hugged herself placidly in spirit. Jane was never fierce ; calm and good- natured, always ; never forgetting to be polite. One got along so much better in the world, if one were only wise enough to know it. At ten o'clock Prue went and called Rebecca. She stood there in the passage between Jane's room and the doctor's until Re- becca glided in and Jane came out. Then she stopped her, and spoke abruptly : — " Gershom is come, Jane. I did n't choose that you should know it before ; and he don't want to see anybody else till morn- ing. First of all, if the doctor wakes comfortable, I mean he shall see Mm." It was a fair fight, and aboveboard, now. By the very estab- lishment of this, Jane's guns were silenced. She had not a word to say, — she, in her soft politeness. Brusque truth was not her ■weapon, as it was Prue's. She must have vantage-ground, and mask her batteries ; Prue came upon them with a bayonet-charge of outright honesty, and carried the whole line at a sweep. There is nothing that so circumvents circumvention as a thorough, un- looked-for directness. In the chill between midnight and morning, Prue took up her watch in the sick-room. " Father has been rather restless : he wanders a little, I think. I can hardly tell whether it is that or dreaming. He talks about Benjamin, and even little Will that died so long ago." Will was Jane's brother, dead in babyhood, thirty years before. Rebecca said this low, at the door, before she went. " I think, Prue, he has never left off worrying about Gershom, he put him so in their place. If he would only come soon ! " 140 162 THE GAYWOUTHTS. " He has come, Becsie : he came last night." Her tenderness and joy welled up in these words, as she spoke them to Kebecca. Prudence was neither rough nor fierce now. The two women leaned to each other with a mutual impulse, and their lips met. A Itfw vgice breathed from the bed, as Prue came up to it alone : — " ' Me have ye bereaved of my children. Joseph is not,, and Simeon is not ; and ye will take Benjamin away : all these things are against me.' " Send for Ben, Prue ; " and he lifted up his eyes to her face beseechingly. ' ' Tell him to come to me. All the boy I ' ve got in the world ; what did he go away for ? Benjamin — it was right he should be named so, he was Bachel's son, — the son of my old age." "Go to sleep now, father: he is coming ; he will be here by and by." " ' One went out from me ; and I saw him not since : and if ye take this also from me, ye shall bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave.'" The story of Israel wandered in his brain, — this old man, whose sons had died in babyhood and boyhood ; from whom they had lured his last stay, — Bachel's child's child, whom he made in his heart as hi3 own ; who had grown up, reminding him, as his youth bloomed, of Benjamin ; growing so into Benjamin's place that it had seemed like a coming back of the lost : so that now, in his wandering and weakness, he could not separate the thought of the two. But he slept at last, quieted by that promise, — a real sleep, as if something of the peace Prue brought in with her had stolen over him also ; and by and by, — hours after, — when the gray of the tardy January dawn began to crimson, he woke, quite calm and conscious : conscious of something that had come to him as in his sleep, — that was his first thought now ; but that he was not sure of. , " Did you tell me he had come, Prue ? or did I dream it ? " " I told you, father," said Prue, tenderly, coming to him with some warm, nourishing drink she had got ready ; " and now when you have had this, and are quite rested and strong, I 'm going to bring him in to see you." Prue knew just how to hold his head for him, and give him his drink comfortably ; she knew also just how much to bring, — she never dismayed him with a cup too mighty ; and, partly for this and partly from a childlike acceptance of it as a condition, the doctor swallowed it all, to the last drop ; and then he lay back, with a sweet contentedness in his face, and looked up, his eyes COMING. 163 asking for the better thing she was to give him next. She bathed his face, and smoothed his white hair, and laid the bedclothes even ; and then she went and got the boy, as she had promised. " An old man always looks far older for not being dressed, Ger- shie, or for ever so little of a sickness ; you must remember that." " I am afraid I shall cry, mother, like a girl." "You won't do any such thing, Gershom," said his mother, quickly, turning short round. " It might kill him." They went in together ; and Gershom did not cry : but the tall, brown sarlor stood by the old man's bedside, and laid his rough- ened hand in his; and every fibre of him trembled with deep feel- ing : for as Jacob had been to Benjamin, so had this old man been even to him. And the legend of Genesis was still repeating itself in the sick man's thought ; for he turned him toward the boy, and spoke the words familiar from many a heart-reading, " ' Now let me die, since I have seen thy face, and thou art yet alive ! ' " " Grandfather!" \ It was all in that one word : The fulness of feeling that dared no further trust itself to utterance ; — the pleading remonstrance against that word of death, — the sorrow, the self-accusing, the love ; the very cry of Cain, — "It is more than I can bear! " There are single human tones that can say all this, and more. The old man answered it. " My son, it will all be well, and as God pleases. No other hath done or can undo. I have longed for you, and you have come. I thank Him J" They understood each other, now : they felt each other; heart to heart. None could put a thought between them that could alter this. " By and by you shall come and tell me all about your ship, and your sea-life. You 've seen a bigger piece of the world than I have, Gershic." The voice was faint. The good doctor was tired with his effort and with his gladness ; he could do no more now for awhile than to rest silently in his grateful thought. But he would not let the boy go away heavy with too great solemnity. He would say this cheerful word of common interest in common life first. Gershom spoke no further till he stood alone with his mother in her chamber. Then he looked her full in the face and said — " Tell me, mother, if you can, just what you wrote to Aunt Jane, before I went" His mother repeated to him that postscript of her letter, word for word. It had lain in her memory ever since. She had con- 164 THE GAYWORTHYS. sidered it well before she wrote it ; she had reviewed it, mentally, over and over, in those forty-eight hours between the sending of it and the receiving of her son's letter. She had weighed the probable effect of every word upon him. She had not given him up, even on that Tuesday night when his own word came that he must go away without seeing her. " That was it," she said, when she had finished. " And I felt sure that, let things be as they might, it would bring you back." Gcrshora Vorse turned pale about the lips. "Mother," said he, slowly, and without vehemence,* " I will never forgive Aunt Jane for this." And at that moment his mother could not find it in her heart to answer him a word. CHAPTER XVIII. BIDDY FLYNN AND HER NEIGHBORS. There were tidy, white-curtained windows, with blossoming plants looking out at the panes, and rooms with clean-scoured floors, where bits of comfortable carpet were laid down, and all the snug, attractive living of the thrifty poor, in some other por- tions of that same tenement whereof the back room of the ground floor was rented and punctually paid for by Ned Blackmere. When he went off upon his voyages, he paid beforehand. His wife should not be without a roof to cover her and her shame. So the landlord was forbearing, and the neighbors, for the poor man's sake, complained as little as they could. But they drew their little children inside their doors when her staggering step came over the threshold in the dusk ; and Biddy Flynn, the washerwoman, would listen and look in on her at night, before she went to her own bed, for fear of fire. Biddy Flynn had a fine silk shawl that she wore on Sundays in the summer time, that Ned Blackmere had brought home to her from beyond the sea. They all pitied Blackmere, the sailor, — these simple neighbors, in their honest hearts ; and when his sad, stern, weather-beaten face was seen about, and he passed in and out, at intervals, among them, they took a solemn look on their faces, too, as they might do for one who had death in his home. He scarcely knew whether they pitied him or not He never sought companionship among them. He gave Biddy Flynn the shawl, for his wife was not fit for it, and it might help to keep her patient. He was afraid that, some day, losing patience, they might turn Susan into the street. They were afraid, too, — the neighbors ; afraid as well as sorry for him. He was such a terrible strong man, and there was such an anger in his eye, sometimes, when he came out. " Lord grant he. may n't be left to lift his hand upon her ! " Luke Dolan, the carpenter, would say to his Betsy, in the room above, when the sound of fierce words, — gin made her devilish, 166 THE GAYWOKTHYS. not stupid, as poor Ned had said, — and of deep, stem answers, like the restrained rumble of an earthquake, would come up from below. But the room below was sometimes empty for weeks, for months ; then the neighbors had peace and respite. Sukey Blackmero was "off on her travels," nobody knew where. She had her haunts, her cronies ; also, they knew that now and then, to get more money, she would go and " take a place.'? She had a decent suit of black that only saw the light upon these emergencies. She could look very respectable in this, with her black hair brushed, ■ — it was silky black hair still, for Sukey had been handsome, — with threads of grey that only emphasized the respectability ; and she wore a middle-aged dignity that one would hardly have sus- pected. She was a good cook, and an Englishwoman ; that was a great thing. "" She had been brought up in the household of a county family, in the old country ; hence her middle-aged dig- nity that could be so deferential, also ; a manner sure to take here, where a rampant independence is ordinarily inspired with the first breath of republican air. So she got into good places, at high wages. The cloven foot showed presently, but she was seldom " overcome." Her fellow-servants got the worst of it. They called her what her husband did, — a she-devil. True to the traditions of her genus, she disappeared by-and-by in a grand explosion ; then she came home with money in her pocket, — mar- vellously well lined, sometimes, after short absences, — and drop- ped to her lower parallel of life. On these two tracks she ran, leaving behind her a pretty little thread of history that only she, if any one, could trace. I do not mean to enter into it ; my story lies not here. What I have to say I will say quickly. Something came of it all, one January night ; a tragedy, — a mystery ; an added blackness over old Barnacle's gloomy life. Sukey had been home three days ; long enough to be at her worst. The third night she stayed out late. The winter evening had closed in ; the little families were gath- ered, each to its own fireside. Children were washed and put to bed, or crawled to their untidy couches, unwashed, according to the genius of the different homes ; for there was not, of course, in every room of the old mansion that had come to be a human hive, that poetry of humble living I have hinted at in some ; sim- ple supper-tables were cleared away ; bits of crockery were washed and put up on 'their shelves ; the hour of domestic com- fort or discomfort had arrived. Biddy Flynn was home from a hard day's work. She had had BIDDY JTLYNN AND HEE NEIGHBORS. 167 her*-" cup 'o tay," and wanted to go to bed. First however, she had a little routine of ceremony to go through. She had some money to count that was tied up in an old stocking-foot and kept behind the press. She had some more to put wit"h it that she un- fastcued out of the corner of her neckerchief, — her wages for the day. This she reckoned over carefully, and added to the rest; and then to prove her sum, counted up all together, once more. Biddy was saving money*— lone woman that she was — to bring over by and by a sister's child from the " ould counthry." Then she " racked " her hair, and tied it up tight, in anticipation of her early morning toilet,' thereby reduced to the washing of her face, and the tying on of a clean cap ; then she said her prayers ; then one would have thought she must be ready for repose ; but there was yet one thing more to do. Against the wooden partition that had cut a large, old-fashioned kitchen in two, and made of it the separate tenements of Biddy Fly nn and Sukey Blackmere, the sailor's wife, — hung a gaudy colored print of the Madonna. High up, so that it could only be reached by climbing on the deal table that stood beneath. Every night, between her prayer and slumbers, Biddy so as- pired ; and every night the gracious Queen of Heaven came down, — from off her nail, — and Biddy had a vision. A surreptitious vision, — hardly beatific, — through a crack of the old boarding from which the paper had split away, and which, just here, the ingenious Biddy had enlarged, — to a comfortable breadth on her own side, and as far as she dared upon the other. Two thirds of the room, upon the further side, came within her range of ob- servation ; the bed against the wall below, took up most of the remaining third. Holding the' Blessed Mary fast in her arms, Biddy made, first, her ocular examination of the premises; and then, applying the second feature of her face to the chink, would press into inquisitorial service a second sense. Usually, she smelt gin ; and for its being only that, and not fire, she would thank the Holy Mother, and hang her reverently up again, and so betake herself content to bed. A desolate room, — a worse than desolate man ; these were what Biddy Flynn looked down upon, amazedly, to-night. Ashes upon the floor, about the dead, dirty stove ; a broken bottle on the hearth ; a pail of filthy water, with a black mop-rag hanging over the side, conveying its contents by a slow dribbhj, to the floor; a sloppy table, with a crust and a tea-cup upon.it; these visible by the blaze of an inch of candle standing flat upon the brick mantel, without a stick. By the miserable fireside, the man who had come home across the seas, to this ; who had lighted 168 THE GAYWOETHYS. as lie could his forsaken hearth, and sat down by it, gloomy and despairing ; his feet among the ashes ; ashes of shame, also, upon his bent head, — ashes of hopelessness upon his heart. " Beast ! " he muttered, showing his whito teeth, set with pas- sion, and clenching tighter the closed fists between which he leaned his face, and sent forth his compressed speech. " And this stands between me and the chance of anything better on God's earth ! — Dam-nation 1 " Biddy Flynn shrunk back ; she had no business with this, the horror of it was too sacred ; she hung up the Blessed Mary with trembling hands, and prayed that glorified Womanhood, in her ignorant way, for mercy on what womanhood debased had crushed and maddened. In a little while she heard his chair pushed back, and his step going out toward the door at the back that opened upon a narrow alley. He might have stayed there, waiting, or he might have gone away ; she could not tell. She listened awhile, in fear, for what sounds might come back into that next room, but, hearing nothing, by-and-by she fell asleep. It was going on to eleven o'clock when Susan Blackmere turned her unsteady steps into the alley. She put her hands out, reach- ing the wall on either side, supporting herself so, and feeling her dark way. A person looking in from the street would have dis- tinguished nothing in the glo'om. If Susan Blackmere, though, had but turned for a moment and looked outward, she might have seen, against the light of the entrance, the shadow of a something that cajne silently behind her. She was safe not to turn, how- ever, groping her way so, at least until she came to the end. When she stopped there at the house door, the figure behind her stopped, and crouched down low, almost prostrate, like a dog, against the farther wall. She passed in and shut the door. There was no look upon it ; the children had pulled out an old bolt and lost it, long ago ; but the tenants looked their separate rooms at night, and it was no matter. It was Susan Blackmere's own affair, whether she remembered to fasten her door or not. As often as not, it was left as she left it now. She stumbled in, over the pail, with a snarl and a curse. She felt towards the mantel, and searched for a match and the candle- end. This last was burned down and gone. She snarled and cursed again, and put her hand in her pocket and brought forth another. Then the match flickered through the darkness, and the flame' fastened itself to the bit of wick, and the small, steady light showed, presently, the whole wretched, squalid place again. Showed it to two eyes that glared in at the window. BIDDY FLYNN AND HER NEIGHBORS. 169 " Tree'd, — by G — ! Now we '11 see who '11 blab ! " And the figure crouched itself again and waited. ». What it was that waked Biddy Flynn, when she had been asleep an hour or thereabout, she could never distinctly tell. A dull blow, or a fall, and a strange sound of something crushed, — then two or three rapid steps, — whether she had dreamed or heard these, in her coming consciousness, she started upright in her bed, and tried to comprehend. Dead silence, now. But something awful in the silence. A sudden horror in the air that seized her in every nerve. Biddy crossed herself and listened, motionless. Still no further sound.. " Was it a bad dhrame, I wonder, or the bit of herrin' wid me supper ? Holy Mother ! but I 've a strange feel, the night ! " It might not have been five minutes, or it might have been fif- teen, that Biddy sat there still, with shortened breath and strained sense ; but she calmed a little, at last, her muscles relaxed, she took a fuller respiration, and was about to lie back upon her pil- low when there came a sound from just beyond the slight parti- tion, — a faint, long, gasping, gurgling moan, like nothing but some creature dying in its blood. " Ooh ! — Ahl the saints ! What is it ? " she cried, and clapped her hands upon her ears, in a panic of ghastly apprehension. For minutes more she cowered and quivered in an ignorant terror ; fearful to move, fearful to stay where she was. Then she slid down out of her bed, and, gathering up her shawl, which served her for an extra coverlet in the cold nights, she wrapped herself about with it, and crept toward her door. This opened on the side of the room furthest from the Blaek- mereSf and directly at the foot of the broad old staircase, which ran up the back, and ended at Luke Dolan's door. " Betsy Dolan ! — Luke ! Luke ! — Are ye there at ahl ? " came in a hoarse, gusty whisper through the keyhole ; and the door was shaken, as if the wind had got in, and clattered it. But the stout carpenter and his tired wife slept sound. The call came louder, then. " Arrah, darlint, waken, for the love of Heaven! — Luke Dolan I Betsy!" And Betsy heard, at last. " Whisht ! don't rise the childher ! — What is it, sure ? " whis- pered Mistress Dolan, opening the door. Biddy waited for no word or ceremony, but pressed in. " The Blessed Lord knows what it is ! It'sa fit or a murdher, 15 170 THE Gayworthys. down below, in Blackmere's ! Mak' hashte, and come down wid yees, fopit's feared I am of me life, t&ere, me lane! " A head came out at the opposite floor, at this ; and with the multiplied voices, and the opening and shutting, the alarm was spread till the whole floor was roused. There was a striking of lights, — a hustling into clothes, — a hurrying down the stairs ; and, presently, into the dark, cheerless room where Ned Black- mere had sat brooding' alone, three hours ago, huddled a crowd of housemates, eager with fear and curiosity. " Stand back, all of ye ! " said Luke Dolan, going first, and looking upon the bed. " There 's wurruk here for the cur'ner, — an' the Lord be gracious to us all ! " It was the end of the dark thread that only one memory could have traced. And of the last hours through which it wound, there were no lips, now, to speak. There was only a dead woman lying there across the bed, face down ; beaten in among the clothes ; blood welling from among the matted hair ; beside her, the rough, stained, wedge-shaped billet of firewood that, in some human hand, had done the deed. CHAPTER XIX. THE SILENT SIN. Me. Gair went down to Selport, to look after his brig; and his child. People drop all to attend the summons, when message comes that a kinsman lies in danger of death ; nothing, then, is of any weight, in comparison ; but if death be long in coming, or hold off, uncertain, affairs become peremptory again. If any change occur,, let them know. Mr. Gair was to be thus apprised. It suggested itself to Jane, in that underflow of thought that winds on, subtilely, among anxieties and emotions, strangely untouched of either— that this might be convenient, "if anything should happen." She never could have anything to do with that dread- ful milliner at the Bridge. Friday and Saturday were quiet, easy days ; no alteration. The Doctor had Gershom in, and talked with him at intervals. He comforted and strengthened him, concerning what he had done. " All would turn out for the best If he — the Doctor — could have had his health, and worked on a little longer, he might have preferred his own plan ; but now he was quite content. People would not wait for a boy to jzo and get his learning. Sickness came every day ; they looked for a ready-made wisdom to step in ; ready-made gray hairs, if they could get them." " Put your whole might into it, now, Gershom ; and make a man of yourself ; think of your mother ; think of your God, boy ! " Between Saturday night and Sunday morning came the begin- ning of what they had feared. The Doctor himself had felt sure of it. A relapse. All day Sunday the good man struggled pain- fully with disease. On Monday, the word went down for Mr. Gair and Say. God's word came down also into that still, sick-room, calling a soul back to Himself. Before Tuesday night, when the stage came in at the Bridge and Gershom drove to meet it, all was over. 172 THE GAYWORTHYS. It had been a slow, painful giving way of nature. A laboring and failing breath, hour after hour, till the breath went forth at last, and was never drawn again. They sat by and watched, with grieved hearts and seldom speech. There was no set leave-taking. There was no need. There had harcHy ever been any word, that either could remember, of the goodinan going away from among them now, that, for its truth, or kindliness, or cheer, or simple, holy trust, might not fitly have been cherished by them as his last. " Think of your mother. Think of your God, boy ! " These were what thrilled solemnly in the heart of Gershom Vorse, as nearly the last he spoke to him. They sat all together at the family board for the first time since the Doctor's illness had gathered them at home, at that still breakfast on the Wednesday morning. The first coming together- of the household in its old routine, after a blank has been left in it. How many a heart has felt that graveside solemnity ! "It" — the funeral — was to be on Thursday. Mr. Gair could not leave his business longer. He would come up again next week, and attend to anything that they might need him for. But just now his presence was imperatively required in Selport. " With all the rest," Mr. Gair said, in that subduod tone that people use when they begin to speak of any outside matter in a house of death, " there has been a sad piece of work on board the brig since she came in. That English fellow, Gershom — ■ Ned Blackmere — was arrested Friday morning for the murder of his wife. It 's in the paper here," and he drew out a Selport Journal from his coat-pocket. Gershom Vorse, startled out of thoughts that nothing less than a shock like this could have displaced, gazed for an instant in the speaker's face, as unable to take in the meaning of his words, then pushing his chair round suddenly, and almost springing from it, he exclaimed — " He never did it in the world, sir ! " After another moment's thought, — "he coicld n't have done it ! Why, the brig only got in on Thursday evening, and he was on board all night with me." " All night? You both went ashore, though? The murder took place, they say, between half past ten and eleven, and Blackmere was seen there, waiting in his wife's room, before she came in. The best we can get at for him is, that he was on board during the forepart of the night, and on deck for some time towards midnight. Buxton's men can testify to that much, but they can't swear to the exact time he came on board. And half an hour would make all the difference." THE SILENT SIN. 173 " It was n't fifteen minutes, sir, after the clock struck ten, when he came back' on board ! " " Can you swear to that, Gershom ? " " Yes, sir." " You may do something for him, then. At any rate you ought to be on hand week after next, when the case comes up." No wonder, with this double weight of thought upon him, that Oershom was silent, and sought to be alone as far as possible all that day. In all this time, beyond the barest greeting at first seeing her, he had held no communication with Mrs. Gair. The circumstances under which they met made such avoidance easy. There had been little talk between any in that sad house, through- out those hours of watching and of grief. Mrs. Vorse was busy with necessary cares. Miss Millett, from -the Bridge, was up stairs with the other sisters, " making mourn- ing." G-ershom must get out of the way of all this. He could not have his mother to himself. He spent nearly all his time in the bay of the old barn, lying there alone in the hay, in the warm south window, where he had used to betake himself in the happy days that seemed already so long ago, when he was in heart and truth but a boy, dreaming boy-dreams of the world and of finding his way out into it ; feeling now thrust out, with the door of his youth shut to suddenly behind him. It all revolved itself over and over in his mind as he lay here. This terrible change ; this loss that made him, for the first time, absolutely fatherless ; the thought of what he should do with his mother; that she must not stay here now ; that he would take her away, somewhere, and have her all for his own, — his own care, his one comfort. Of Aunt Jane, that he could never, would never, have aught to do with her again. The guilt of his grand- father's death, if it lay at any human door, lay at hers. Gershom had too much of his "mother's clear, discerning justice not to see this, and cease reproaching himself weakly or unduly. He knew he would have come, laying aside all plan and preference of his own, at that summons which she had withheld from him. He was indignant, to the very depths of his nature, at this wrong that she had done them all ; but he laid the wrongwhere it belonged. He would torture himself no more with self-upbraiding. He would take every loving, generous word that his grandfather had said, home into his heart and let it comfort him. Between them there had been truth and peace to the last. Between them there should only lie a peaceful memory. He said all this to himself, not for self-solace only, but for honesty and justice. Yet he had to say it again and again. The 15« 174 THE GAYWOKTHTS. cruel bitterness would come up. If he bad only done bis grand- father's bidding ! If he bad only never let that sea-fever got possession of hira ! If he had only been determined, even, not to go without a-coming home first ! He might be strong enough and just enough not to torment himself morbidly, but this dreg of reproach would always lie in his conscience. Jane Gair had put this unsilenced, haunting "If" of fruitless regret into a young life that bad never known it before ; that henceforth should never be able wholly to cast it out. And Ned Blackmcre ! This story, so sudden arid awful, that he could hardly credit or conceive it clearly ; this horrible doubt, this deadly suspicion, this mortal danger that hung over the man, who, in those very hours when it had been bearing down upon him, had been sleeping at his side, his sole companion ! This ter- rible investigation with which Gershom, by the evidence that he could bring, would have to do ! Truly, tremendous realities had swooped down, all at once, among his boy-dreams, and scattered them forever ! Say came and found him, at last. She had guessed where he might be, but she had not dared to come, till the red, level light of the setting sun streamed over the snow, and the tea-table stood ready, and she had heard Aunt Prue asking for bim. Then she put on her India-rubber shoes and flung her little Scotch shawl over her head, and came to fetch him. " Gershie ! " she called, timidly, at the foot of the granary stairs. " Well?" answered Gershom, from above, in the hay. " Tea 's ready, and Aunt Prue wants you." No answer. "May I come up?" - " I 'm coming down in a minute." Not permission, clearly. Neither dismissal, quite. Say gath- ered the little shawl tighter across her shoulders, and sat down on the lowest step. In a minute Gershom came. It was a pale, sad little face — pale with the winter chill, sad with a look of some soul-summer gone out of it already — that turned itself up to his as he came down. There were tears, too, standing in the patient eyes. " Oh, Gershie I " she said toucbingly, putting out her hand for his, — " the old, good times are all gone. I don 't think there 's ever going to be any Hilbury any more ! " " Something turns up and sets 'em adrift, and what becomes of your home then ? " Those bitter words of Old Barnacle repeated themselves to Gershom's thought, and echoed the plaint of the child. THE SILENT SIN. 175 " For me — I suppose not," lie said. " I 've got to go out into the world and get my living. I ean't be a boy any longer. I 'm a man, Say. But you '11 come here, summers, the same as ever. Aunt Joanna and Aunt Kebeeca will be here. You'll come." " No, I shan't," said Say, in a voice that trembled. " Mother won't want to come here, always, now. She said so this morning, when Aunt Eebecca spoke about the summer. I know ske did n't want much to come, last time. She '11 go to the Springs, now ; or the sea-shore. That 's what she wanted ; only she said- grandpa would be disappointed. And they said something else ; about there being no knowing what -would be done, now, with the farm. — And besides," the words quivered out painfully, — " it would n't be anything to come if you were n't here." Gershom had been the centre of all Say's joys, in all the summer times that she could remember. Now,, she was losing him. It is one of the gulfs that open at our feet in life, when one who has been dear and close — a sharer in the same thoughts, and wishes, and pleasures — springs suddenly as it seems away from our side, out of our sphere into another, that lies ready for him and not for us. When the brother goes out of his childhood and his home into manhood and the wide world, — leaving the sister behind in her home and her childhood still, whence the light of both has vanished. When, of the sisters who have slept and played and learned together, tine goes forth to new loves and duties, and companionships, and the other stays behind in the same accustomed place, that yet can never be the same again. Ah ! it is not the grave only whicfi yawns between lives whereof the one is taken — on — up ; — the other left, drearily waiting, » in a world whose meaning is all changed ; whose very vital springs seem deadened. Say saw this fissure widening at her feet, between herself and Gershom Vorse ; and her child-heart found it hard to bear. " I 've got to be a little girl ever so many years more ! " she said, piteously. Gershom would have been tender with her, but that he hardened so against her mother. * "You '11 grow fast enough," he said. " And you '11 forget all about Hilbury. You'll go to the Springs and the sea-shore ; and by and by you '11 like that best." They were walking up, slowly, along the drive. Say stopped, and let fall Gershom's hand, and sat herself down on the rim of the great trough, determinedly, :