University of Virginia Library

RUTH AND LUCY,

OR CROSS-PURPOSES.

A winding lane of elder, hip, and sloe,
Led to the thatcher Abel Nixon's home:
A cottage squared in white and beamed in dark,
A bee-hive and a dahlia row beyond,
A cornered croft with twisted apple-trees,
A field-gate to the right and one bar gone;
The near ground poached and roughened by the hooves
Of lazy crowded pasture-going beeves:
Pasture on pasture laid until the verge,
And nothing nearer heaven than hedge or tree:
A shire of milk as even as a mere.
Now Abel Nixon had one daughter Ruth,
And fostered up a niece beside his child;
And made her as a daughter in his home.
For he had pledged his sister near her death
That he would love the child and shelter it.
But Lucy Moore was elder of a year
Than Ruth: and these together in one nest,
Each orphan of her mother, throve and grew.
And now the tranquil, secret influence
Of day and year and season, like the air
And wind and sunny blue that set the bud,
Moulded the cottage maidens, like a dream,
Into the fragrant germ of womanhood.
The farmer of the pastures at their door
Was Andrew Eden: Andrew Eden's son,
Not less was Andrew: Lucy Moore had been
His foster-sister, for the mother died
After his birth, so Lucy's rear'd the child;
Since she was poor, and wedded to a man
As constant to the alehouse as its sign.
And Andrew in the autumn ploughed the fields,
And Andrew sowed the seed in early spring;
But, fall or seed-time, ever at his task
His face was turning towards the cottage door:
The flutter of a garment stopped his team,
The glitter of an arm withheld his hand,
And left a sterile patch to tell its tales
Among the coming harvest's reedy crowd.
So after Sunday service in the porch
He loitered anxious, near the mounded rests
Of those who loitered as he loitered now,
Poor hearts of mould, in their day: with as warm
An expectation, and as deep a throb,
When their young loves stept from the porch of prayer
With rare and lucid morning in their eyes.
And so perchance would Andrew, if he dared,
For his young love was fearful as a hare
That trembles at the grating of dead leaves,
Walk side by side with Lucy and with Ruth;
And hold their church-books for them by the way,
And see them to the cottage garden gate
Ere he was fully master of his tongue.
So on a week-day often with pretence
His beasts had strayed, or that his fences stood
Unmended on the apple orchard side,
He would contrive to see them day by day:
And what he mended of his fence by day,
As often he would pull it down at night
That he might come and mend it up again;
Like the old dame of story at her web.
Silently coming under silent stars
He heard the hedges heavy with the wind:
As the low morning with a hint of dawn
Drew right and left the leaning clouds, an hour
Before the real sunrise branched in rose.
He saw the gleamy casement where she slept:
And if among the creepers of the wall
A moth, with moon-light wakened, flustered out,
His heart became a vocal tremulous chord
Of agonized vibration. The moved shade
Of foliage on the rafters made him stoop
Behind the bushes fearing to be known,
Or sent him creeping like a felon home.
And so the journey of the world went on,
Until a day when Lucy and when Ruth
Gathered a harvest in the orchard grass
Of apple and of damson: overnight
The gale had strown them: Andrew too was there
Upon some pretext: and by chance it came
That Lucy went away into the house,
And Ruth and Andrew gathered on alone.
Then suddenly a power upon his heart,
A strange constraining impulse vehement,
Like the fierce flash of sun-fire on a day
Of fleeting showers and wild alternate lights—
Made him speak out abruptly: though before
He came, he had not dreamt to speak to her:
But when he looked into her eyes, and found
Her eyes so near him, vehement he spoke.
‘O Ruth, my Ruth, we two have surely been
Together many years, whose every day
Has only gone to me in this one dream,
That one fair noon, like this on which we speak,
I might come to you, as I came to-day,
And say the thought of years—Ruth, be my wife!’
But as she heard him to the very core
She trembled: bitter mist was on her eyes,
And something vapour-like swept out the world:
As a cloud takes the climber on an Alp,
And he is all alone within the cloud
Without an inch of vision: so her world
Failed from her eyes, Andrew, the orchard, all
Withered and was not; yet she heard his voice
Still pleading, but it seemed a distant thing
That spoke to some one in the far away,
Nothing to her and stranger than a dream:
Whereon she graspt a low bough at her side
In falling: yet she fell not, for the bough
Sustained her till the fuller sense of pain
Came back; and then the battle of her life
Passed in an instant. All her old girl love,
Which she had schooled and conquered, flashed and flared
And would not be forgotten; when it heard
The voice, that first had called it to this world,
Telling that only she was dearest now.
But still she conquered all for Lucy's sake,
And calmly answered him, exceeding pale;
‘O Andrew, this you shall not speak to me:
These words are Lucy's, for her heart is yours.
Indeed, if yonder cloud had rained down dust,
I should have wondered less, than at your mouth
To hear the words I never should have heard.
Indeed, believe me, Lucy loves you well.
You spoke not much to me before to-day,
To Lucy speaking often: how should I
Think more about you than an old dear friend?
Nothing beyond; but she, I have heard her wake
When the gray dawn was on the pane, and call
The name of Andrew: I have seen her sit
And weep an hour in twilight: is not this
True love, or else true love is but a name?
‘Now therefore let these words of yours to-day
Be as unsaid: forget them: you and I
Have heard them only: let no mortal soul
Hear them of either: they shall never pass
My lips, and yours they will not any more.
And I entreat you for the love of heaven,
By all our ancient kindness that has been
About these fields since we were each so young,
To try and love poor Lucy in return.
For she is worthy this, and worthy more
Than any man can give her of his love.’
And then she turned and left him where he stood,
Fled to the cottage with no word besides,
Because she could not further trust herself.
And Andrew, dazed and sorrowful, alone
Pondered awhile: then homewards, step on step,
As slowly went as the laborious team
Divides the fallows with their forward toil
Of hoof and straining shoulder. He a week
Touched not the cottage latch: and more each day
The sadness and the strangeness of the thing
Perplexed him: he had lost, utterly lost
Her love he cared for; but in wooing one
Had gained another. Lucy indeed was sweet
And gentle: in some sort he loved her too,
But not like Ruth who held his love so vile:
And Ruth would hate him more, unless he strove
To make return to Lucy, as he could,
For her devotion. Life indeed he knew
Was but the art of bending to the best
Familiar evil: he would face his doom,
And, for sheer love of Ruth, would try to take
Her council in repaying Lucy's love.
And now ten days were gone, and Andrew stood
Again beneath the twisted orchard boughs.
But change had fallen on the happy place,
And common light unsplendoured with decay
The precincts of its glory. But no change
Of sorrow that, which in poor Lucy's eyes
Brightened to hail him with an innocent joy
After his absence: plain at length he saw
How truly Ruth had spoken: in his soul
He pitied Lucy: saw her day by day:
But Ruth would speak alone with him no more
Thereafter: Lucy often was alone
With Andrew: till at length he came to think
Of Ruth that she must surely love elsewhere:
And then his hope fell dead, though sick before.
And still the gentle Lucy's plaintive eyes
Retold their earnest story to his own:
The light pathetic tremor of the hand,
More eloquent than speech, assured him well
That some one still cared for him in the world;
The chance that lost his dearest, gave him this,
A gentle heart; why should this also go,
Why drag unloved his solitary years?
So in a month Lucy and he were wed:
But Ruth remained at home and did not come
To the altar with them: and they thought her strange
And somewhat cold when she would not be there.
Henceforward Lucy at her husband's farm
Dwelt on: but Ruth remained to keep the house
For her old father; querulous was he,
Broken with labour, and complainingly
Flared out his socket end of feeble years.
But Ruth nor failed nor faltered in her love,
So tended him with patience: her chief joy
Was when at evening Lucy's children ran
Across the fields to see her: then Ruth sat
And wound them in her arms and told them tales;
While large and long the shadows of the leaves
Fell on the baby foreheads, as a glow
Like rippling waters moved them, and one said,
“Dear aunt, the sunset fills your eyes with tears.”