University of Virginia Library

16. XVI.
THE OLD HOUSE BY THE SEA.

Shakespeare.

It is an artistic little weakness we scribblers have
of seducing our dramatis personæ into tableaux
vivants, and deserting them abruptly. In a story of
this kind, which depends rather on action than
fine writing for interest, this species of autorial claptrap
is very effective, if cleverly done. So we will
make no excuse for leaving nuestros amigos at the
lawyer's office, and drawing a green curtain, as it
were, on the actors of this humble comedy.

Some six years are supposed to have elapsed since
the drop-scene fell on our last act.

From this out our story is rather a pantomime
than a play. We give pictures and figures, instead
of dialogues and soliloquies. Will the reader follow
us?

I.

Time has not touched Mr. Flint gently. His hair
is grayer, his step more feeble, and his eyes have
a lack-lustre look. His cravat is whiter and stiffer,
if possible, than ever; and he looks more religious.
God grant that he is so. But we doubt it. For to
such as he, nor April, with its purple-mouthed violets,
nor red ripe summer, with its wealth of roses, nor
the rich fruit-harvest of autumnal suns, bring wisdom's
goodness. The various months teach him no
lesson. Let him go. He came like a shadow into
our plot, so let him depart. He is not a myth, however,
but flesh and blood mortality; and though we
have only outlined his weakness—his love of gold,
his cold, intriguing spirit—yet the sketch is such
that, if he looks at it, he will have the felicity of
seeing himself as others see him!

II.

It is a day in June, an hour before sunset. The
lanes leading to an old house situated between Ivyton
and the sea, are fringed with pink peach blossoms,

and the air is freighted with their odors. The
violets, with dew in their azure eyes, peep from
every possible nook; and those sweet peris of the
summer wood, wild roses, are grouping everywhere.
Surely Titania has been in this spot, breathing exquisite
beauty upon the flowers, or, perhaps, Flora's
dainty self. The blue-bells, these yellow-chaliced
butter-cups, are fit haunts for fairies, and, perchance,
wild Puck, or Prospero's good Ariel has
been slumbering in them. But let us draw near to
the fine old house which stands in this new Eden. It
was here that we first met the little castle-builders—
the child Bell and Mortimer. The place is not
changed much. The same emerald waves break on
the white beach; the same cherry-trees are spreading
their green tresses, and the simple churchyard sleeps,
as it used, in sunshine and shadow.

The house has been newly painted, and the fresh
green blinds make one feel a sense of shade and
coolness. The garden in front has been re-made
with a careful eye to its old beauties. The white
pebbled walks, the strawberry and clover beds, the
globes of pansies, and the clambering honey-suckle
vines, are all as they were years ago. Even the
groups of wild roses, by the door, bud and bloom
as if the autumn winds had never beaten them down.

We shall accuse the reader with having a bad

memory, if he does not recognise Joe Wilkes in the
stalwart form and honest face of the gardener, who
occupies himself with tying up a refractory vine,
which persists in running wild over the new summer-house.
It is he, indeed—the whilome jailor of
the Tombs, who has laid aside his ponderous prison-keys,
and taken up the shovel and the hoe.

III.

Two persons are standing at the “round window,”
where Bell and her brother used to linger, dreamily,
in the twilights of long ago. The rays of the setting
sun glance over the waves, and fall on the faces
of Mortimer and Daisy—Daisy Snarle no more, but
little Maude Walters. Their honey-moon has been
of six years' duration, and to such as they, that sweet
moon of tenderness never wanes, but runs from full
to full—never new and never old! Strephon woes
Chloe as of yore. The lover, as in some antique
picture, is ever kneeling at the feet of his mistress,
and she, through the gathering of years, looks down
on him with the olden tenderness and the April
blushes of womanhood! To such as they, life plays
on a dulcimer. The golden age is not dead to
them. They see the shepherd Daphnis seated on
the slopes of ætna, and hear him pipe to the nymph
Eschenais. This “bank-note world,” to them, is

Arcady, and their lives are sweet and simple as
pastoral hymns!

But we, the author of this MS., are growing pastoral
ourselves, and Heaven forbid that we should
venture into a field which one of our poets has recently
brought into disrepute by his indifferent blank
verse.

Mortimer, leaning on the sill of the window, is
looking at Daisy, who stands a little in the background,
with that kissable white hand of hers shading
the sun from as dangerous a pair of black eyes
as ever looked “no” when they meant “yes.” She
is watching a speck of a boat, which is dancing up
and down on the waves like a cork. Mortimer has
just brought a telescope to bear on the distant object,
and we, with that lack of good-breeding which
has characterized all romancers from time immemorial,
will look over his shoulder. The delighted
occupant of the boat is that audacious fellow, Tim,
who has taken a trip up to Ivyton from the great
city, to spend a week with “Mr. Mortimer.” It
may be well to say that Tim—Timothy Jones, Esq.,
Mr. Reader—has ceased to have a proclivity for
the “machine;” and now-a-days, the City Hall alarm
bell never disturbs his equanimity. Indeed, he is
so metamorphosed by time and a respectable tailor,
that the gentle reader stands in some danger of not

recognizing him at all. Hence the above formal
introduction. Just notice the set of those cream-colored
pants, falling without a wrinkle over those
mirror-like patent leathers, and the graceful curve
of that Shanghai over the hips! Just notice! And
more than all, that incipient moustaché, which only
the utmost perseverance on the part of Tim and
Mr. Phalon has coaxed out into mundane existence!

The writer of this veritable history has a great
mind to drown Tim for his impudence; but as that
young gentleman has a good situation in a Front-street
commission-house, he refrains, for a capsize
a mile from land would considerably interfere with
Young America's prospects.

IV.

Captain Edward Walters sits on the door-step
of the old house; and through a curtain of honey-suckle
vines, which he draws aside, is watching
the fawn-like motions of

Is it little Bell come back again? It is very like
her. Walters thinks so, as the child runs from
flower to flower like a golden-belted bee, and a mist
comes over his fine eyes, and he can scarcely see
his grandchild for tears.

His lips move, and perhaps he is saying: “Little
Bell! Little Bell!”

And he thinks of the angel whom he left years
ago, playing on the partarré, in front of the gate.
He hears her clear, crystal laugh, and sees her
golden ringlets floating among the flowers, and cannot
tell if they be curls or sunshine!

The child in the garden resembles the dead Bell
as one white lily does another. She has the same
wavy tresses, shading the same dreamy eyes, with
their longing, languid expression. Her form has
the abandon of childhood, with a certain shadow of
dignity that is charming. She is very fragile and
spiritual; and it seems to us as if Heaven, in moulding
the child, had hesitated whether to make her
an Angel or a Flower, and so gave her the better
parts of each!

Let us take one more look at her sweet young
face—

Little Bell holds an armful of lilacs against her
bosom; and, with her eyes running over with childish
merriment, trips toward the house; but two arms

stretching out from the vines catch her. She utters
a pretty scream, and then sits quietly on Walters'
knee. He kisses her laughingly; but his face grows
serious as his eyes fall on a string of almond-shaped
pearls which enricle the child's delicate neck; on
the innocent white bosom lies a

It is Daisy's Necklace; that is What Came of
it; and here, gentle reader, is