 | CHAPTER XIV.
A FRIEND. The shadow of Moloch mountain |  |
14. CHAPTER XIV.
A FRIEND.
The next day had been appointed for an
excursion up the mountain, but the advent
in the morning of a rival base-ball club,
challenged some days before by the champions
of that noble game resident at Dream Harbor,
broke up all other excursions, and filled the
public mind with visions of blue or scarlet
banners, badges, dresses, prizes, and preparations.
Even the dogs of the respective houses,
and sheep of the field where the match was
to be played, were decorated with ribbons of
the rival colors, and one enthusiastic young
lady was heard to propose that a couple of
calves grazing in an adjacent paddock should
be adorned, the one in blue and the other in
red ribbons, and turned loose among the combatants;
but this notion was for some reason
hastily suppressed, and the young lady detailed
to the manufacture of paper caps for
the players, each one with a bow of ribbon
upon its pointed top.
Beatrice, who cared not at all for base-ball,
and a great deal for mountains, watched these
preparations with rather petulant disdain, and
finally, by condescending to a little coaxing,
persuaded her uncle to resume the idea of the
excursion, confining the party to their two
selves; for Mrs. Charlton was already the
centre of an eager throng, each claiming her
as a partisan, and making her umpire upon
various questions of dress, usage, and propriety.
“Of course I must side with the red, for I
have not a scrap of blue anything in my possession;
and scarlet is the only color I wear.
See, I assume my badge.”
And winding an Indian scarf about her
head, she became at once a sultana, a Zobeide,
a picture, an “Admirable of the Red,” as a
very young man, still in his Sophomore year,
remarked with the air of saying a good thing.
“She can spare us, uncle, and of course it is
proper if you go with me,” urged Beatrice.
And the matter was arranged with but slight
opposition from Mrs. Charlton, who enjoyed
the position she affected to disdain, and had
little thought to bestow upon her charge.
“There! This is real pleasure,” sighed
Beatrice, as near the crest of the mountain
they halted their panting horses, and turned
to look behind them. The day was perfect,
with so rare an atmosphere that the most distant
summits lay faintly purple against the
tender blue of the sky, and the gleam of
waters, leaving the farthest shores within
the reach of human vision, became distinctly
visible. Tempering the glow of the summer
noon, great white clouds floated now and
again across the fathomless blue depths of
heaven, their shadows falling upon sea and
land, mountains and valleys, like God's gift
of sleep; far out at sea the flash of white sails
showed the course of craft else hidden in the
distance, and still beyond them, ocean and
heaven hid their marriage-kiss behind a veil
of dazzling light, tempting and impenetrable
to mortal vision.
“Yes, it is a fine view,” said Mr. Barstow,
adjusting his double eye-glass upon his nose.
“Now, I wonder which of those peaks is
Kahtadin,” pursued he, scanning the horizon,
“and Mount Washington. They told me at
"The little inn at the summit of the mountain."
[Description: 454EAF. Page 039. In-line image of two men on horseback riding on a tree-lined path towards a distant inn.] the house that I could see them both to-day.Washington is one hundred and seventy miles
from here, and it is seldom that it is visible:
but to-day is so clear. Now, where should
you look for it, Beatrice?”
“I do not know, uncle, I am sure. I suppose
the people up here can tell you,” said
Beatrice dreamily. “But don't you think it
just as pleasant to look at the landscape as if
you were the first person who ever saw it,
and it was all your own, as to know the names
that other people have given to every thing,
and be told that this is Goose Pond, and the
other is Bear Mountain, or Burnt Porcupine
Island?”
“Eh? Well; but if things have names,
why it is by the names you know them, and talk
about them. If I send to Canton for a cargo
of the tea that I like best, my agent would
think I was a fool, and would write back to
ask me its name. Don't you see?”
“But,” persisted Beatrice, “you don't send
for the mountains to come to you—you go to
the mountains, and when you are with them,
the names make but little difference to you or
to them.”
“And when you go away, and want to talk
about them to your friends, what then?”
asked Mr. Barstow; and Beatrice, laughing,
said:
“Your common-sense is too much for me,
Uncle Israel. Let us drive on, and find a
guide and a guide-book.”
Half an hour brought them to the little inn
at the summit of the mountain, and while
Mr. Barstow ordered dinner and awaited its
announcement in a comfortable rocking-chair,
with a bottle of London stout and a stand of
capital cigars at his elbow, his niece strolled
out upon the rocks, perversely determined to
make her first acquaintance with the scene,
alone and unaided by “guide or guide-book.”
Out of sight of the house, and yet within
hearing of a summons, she paused, and seating
herself upon a boulder, kindly fashioned
by nature into semblance of a chair, with
back and footstool, she drew a full, free
breath.
“Alone at last,” murmured she, and leaning
her face upon her hands, she gave way to the
tears that had lain, as it seemed to her, for
weeks, a crushing and intolerable weight
upon brain and heart.
“Is any thing the matter with thee, friend?”
said a low voice behind her; and hastily looking
up, Beatrice saw a woman of middle age,
dressed in the sober livery of the Quakers,
but carrying within her uncomely head-gear
a face so sweet, so calm, and withal so strong,
that no fashion could disguise or disfigure it.
“I do not wish to intrude upon thee,” continued
the stranger, as Beatrice hesitated how
to reply to her. “But as I came softly over
the rocks, I heard the sound of thy grief, and
thought I possibly might be of use. Is thee
hurt in any way?”
“Oh! no—thank you. I was thinking of
other scenes, and absent friends. I thought I
was quite alone,” stammered Beatrice; and
then fearing to have seemed rude and ungracious,
was suddenly silent.
“May I sit beside thee for a moment or
two? This is the finest outlook I have found.”
said the stranger, quietly seating herself,
while Beatrice, half vexed, half attracted to
that lovely face and reässuring voice, sat still,
without reply.
“I have been all day upon the mountain,”
continued the new-comer, “and am not yet
tired. It is a grand thing for us who live in
cities to see how much larger the world is
than we are taught to remember. Does thee
live in a city?”
“Sometimes I visit them.”
“I live always in Pennapolis. My name is
Mary Askew; what is thine?”
“Wansted—Beatrice Wansted,” replied the
young lady, with a half smile at this direct
questioning.
“And did thee ever come nearer to understanding
creation than here?” asked Mary
Askew, pointing to the grand panorama at
their feet.
“I—I have hardly looked yet,” faltered Beatrice.
“Why?” demanded the Friend, fixing her
clear, truth-compelling eyes upon those of the
young girl.
“Because, I was thinking —”
“Because thee was looking inside instead of
out; because thee was thinking of Beatrice
Wansted instead of God and His works, and
that was where thee was short-sighted. Does
thee know, Beatrice, why God made these
mountains and lonely places, and puts it into
our hearts to run away from our daily lives
and seek out the solitudes, when we are sorely
tried? I think it is that we may see at one
look the immensity of creation, and remember
how small a part of it our finger-hurts must
be.”
“But if an insect is crushed to death, it
does not cure it to know that the earth moves
on,” cried Beatrice bitterly.
“Thee is not an insect, Beatrice. Thee has
a soul higher than the mountains, deeper than
the ocean, wider than the sky. The grief of
to day, keen though it may be, will not out-last
even thy mortal life, and after that comes
eternity. That word, it seems to me, dwarfs
all else.”
Beatrice, weeping no more, turned and gazed
into the face of her companion with absorbing
interest.
“But if the same soul exists after death,
how can you tell that the same troubles will
not cling to it?” asked she.
“The troubles of this world belong to this
world: thee may so use them that they will
warp and deface thy soul even after it has
left them behind, if thee chooses, or thee may
make of them stepping-stones to a peace and
joy that ripen the soul for eternal bliss as no
prosperity ever ripens it,” said the Friend, in
a voice so full of meaning that Beatrice remembered
Aunt Rachel's words: “Most all
of us get disappointed once,” and asked herself
if the sweet content upon Mary Askew's
brow had been won from a stepping-stone of
sorrow such as now filled her own heart.
“Thee should look at that ocean and that
sky for the meaning of my words; not in my
face. I do but speak to thee as the spirit
moves me, and the translation is in thy own
heart,” said the Friend quietly; and just then
the clear notes of a horn blown at the house-door
recalled the two to a warning of daily
needs and waiting friends.
“I hope to see more of thee, Beatrice Wansted,”
said the elder, as they walked together
to the house; and Beatrice, a little shyly, answered:
“You are very kind, and I should be glad
to know you better.”
| CHAPTER XIV.
A FRIEND. The shadow of Moloch mountain | |