 | CHAPTER XVIII.
THE DROP OF DEW. Haunted hearts |  |
18. CHAPTER XVIII.
THE DROP OF DEW.
They came, as habitual attendants on funerals usually
do come, in a sort of passive, quiescent state, with minds
carefully laid open for the reception of pleasing melancholy,
and eyes, undrained by previous weeping, and
quite prepared to well over at the least provocation.
Feeling that a certain tribute of sighs and tears is due to
the occasion, such mourners court emotions of sensibility;
and when at sight of the familiar dead the climax is
reached, and the heart momentarily stirred, they compassionate
themselves instead of those with whom they came
to weep, and take credit for “feeling it,” as they believe,
“more than the family.”
Angie had no tears to weep. She had shed them all.
They had flowed like a beneficent shower, and left her
strengthened and refreshed. Since she first came under
the cloud she had never before felt its blessed rain, and it
was only beside her dead father's body that she knew the
relief it brought. Sacred drops they were, the oil that
binds up broken hearts. Such tears refuse to mingle
They do their healing work in secret, and are often
spent before the time appointed for a public libation to
the dead.
So Angie remained tearless while others wept. They
crowded around the coffin in groups. She kept herself
aloof and alone. They stole glances at her at every opportunity;
she followed all their movements with a distrustful,
suspicious stare, but spoke to nobody and nobody
spoke to her. Her face was haggard, but flushed with
excitement or the heat. She wore no mourning; — her
cropped hair, clinging in little round curls to her temples,
gave a conspicuous novelty to her appearance; even her
attitude was out of rule, for, instead of seating herself, she
stood near the head of the coffin, as if jealous of her sole
ownership in its contents, and now and then bending
forward, brushed a fly from the dead face.
“How hardened she looks!” whispered one. “How
brazen-faced!” commented another. “She don't seem
to feel it a mite!” was the indignant conclusion of a
third, who was complacently wiping a tear from her own
eye. “I only hope she treated him well,” muttered a
fourth. “I allers mistrusted old Hap died for want
o' care.”
“Lor! I'm sure it must ha' been a pleasure to nuss
him,” whimpered Miss Sabina Rycker, “he was so courtesy-like
to every body. He looks as handsome as a
stature in his coffin; now don't he? Death 's such a
beautifier at first.”
“Only to think we shall never see his face again, nor
have a nice bow from him, nor nothing, Miss Rycker,”
responded the sympathizing friend to whom this remark
was addressed. “But somehow I can't seem to indulge
my feelin's here with that gal's sarchin' eyes a-followin'
of us so suspicious-like; we've a right to miss him, I
s'pose, if she don't. Let's go back into the kitchen
until the prayer begins, and talk him over comfortably.”
“Seventy-one year!” soliloquized a gray-haired
farmer, as the result of some minutes study of the coffin-plate.
“Not so very old nuther; didn't look a day
over sixty. Cut off in his prime, you may almost say.
Seventy-one — tain't in the course o' natur', sartin. My
father lived to eighty-six;” and the speaker looked up
appealingly at a less venerable, but rather sickly-faced
man, next him.”
“Threescore and ten 's the Bible number,” was the oracular
response. “Seventy-one! that ain't far from your
figure, neighbor;” surveying him anxiously; — “you've
half a dozen year or so the start o' me, I reckon.”
“Mebbe so, countin' by years,” was the self-satisfied
answer, “but it's by reason o' strength men reach fourscore,
and I'm of a long-lived stock. Ha! what's
that?” in a low, compassionate tone (the younger man
had coughed slightly; the air of the room was oppressive,
even for healthy lungs). “You've got a cough,
haven't you? Bad sign in summer time. You ought
to look out for that;” and the farmer glanced expressively
from the living form to that of the dead man.
“No; it's nothin' (hack) to speak of;” (another
hack,) “a dry spot in my throat, that's all.” (A long
series of hacks.) “I'll go out to the well and get a
drink o' water, so 's not to interrupt the prayer.” The
old farmer looked after him, shook his head, and
muttered, — “He's one o' the weakly sort, that don't half
live out their years; he's goin' fast. It 'll be his turn
next.”
Meanwhile a group of women had drawn off into the
kitchen, and while watching for the minister's arrival,
were discussing the merits of the dead, and the fate in
the next world to which the dominie would probably
consign him.
Popular as Mr. Cousin had been in the neighborhood
(and up to a recent period he, as well as his daughter,
had been a general favorite,) it had always been an
understood thing among the strict religionists, that their
intercourse with him was under protest, and strictly
limited to this world. Whether it was some remnant
of the popish faith, cherished in common with the
marquis whom he had served; whether it was some
loose doctrine of the French revolution; whether it was
ignorance or childishness, or “want,” as they said, “of
a strict bringin' up,” there certainly was a streak in the
old Frenchman's religious nature which the Stein's
Plains people could neither comprehend nor pardon.
Not all his simplicity, nor hospitality, nor cheerfulness
in trouble, nor patience under injuries; not even his
regular attendance at church, so long as health permitted,
his love for the young, his kindness to the poor, his
truly Christian courtesy to all, could cancel a single count
of the church's indictment against him, or soften the
pious verdict. He was known to have criticized the
parson's doctrinal sermons, and to have condemned not
a few of his most conclusive arguments. He had
acknowledged that there was something in his conscience
(some black spot doubtless) which forbade his subscribing
to the church articles and becoming a member
of that religious body; he had, many years ago, entertained
for a week at his farm-house two Frenchmen
with shaved heads, suspected of being priests; and one
bitterly cold Sunday he had suffered his dog to follow
him into church, besides on various other occasions
fostering misbehavior among the children of the parish
in service time. It availed little against the speculative
intellect and unsound practices of the old Frenchman,
that he served and trusted God even more faithfully than
he served and trusted man; that he had a mantle of
charity large enough to cover the crimes even of children
and dogs; that his heart was too large to exclude any
one from the mercies of earth or heaven; in a word, that
he was too loving himself not to be universally loved.
He was a man, they all acknowledged, whom they had
no fault to find with in this world, but he would never
do for them to keep company with in the next.
Since the unfortunate affair of George Rawle, the
Frenchman's character had been more than ever tabooed.
(so said the critics) which had caused Angie to be
guilty of such wicked levity. Perhaps it was; for though
they had no commission to judge, truth must acknowledge
that there was a basis of Christian seriousness
wanting in the mercurial foreigner, and a consequent
lack of any right sense of his responsibility in the
religious culture of his child. They had not thought
all the sweet graces of her nature, when they were
uppermost, such a bad inheritance; perhaps the time
would some day come when virtues, born of the Frenchman's
blood, would once more make his memory fragrant.
But at present, though the eyes of the neigborhood
might weep, its tongues felt themselves licensed to
make him the subject of their strictures; and although
he had not been without friends and admirers, he found
but feeble apologists.
“Wal,” remarked one of the strictest among the
knot of female censors, “it was allers cheerful to meet
Mr. Cousins on a week-day, and have a little chat with
him but when a man comes to his latter end you can't
help wishin' he'd been a little more stiddy in his principles.
To see him lyin' there so stiff and still, and
then to think how he was friskin' round less than a year
ago, the night o' the ball at Stein's! I don't go to sich
scenes o' scandal myself, but my nephew, Joel Beck, and
his sister Lize had a sight to tell about the old man's
cuttin' jokes with the folks, smirkin' round among the
old maids, and puttin' all the gals to the blush with his
nonsense.”
Now Dame Rycker had been present at the scene of
scandal alluded to. She must needs justify herself and
her husband to Joel Beck's aunt, so she put in a word
here.
“Why, Miss Beck,” said she, “I don't see no harm
in countenancin' a leetle dance for the young folks, jist
for once in a way; it's better to be there, yer know, to see
that they don't misbehave; but, as you say,” in a qualifying
tone, “there's sich a thing as elderly folks conductin'
themselves sedate-like, and sich a thing as a lightsomeness
that's disgracin' to gray hairs. For my part
I agree with you, that it's more becomin'-like for them
that's well into years to set an' look on, than allers to
hanker, as some do, arter bein' on the floor with the young
folks;” and while delivering this opinion Dame Rycker
almost forgot the original subject of censure as she cast a
malicious look at her sister-in-law, Miss Sabrina Rycker.
Sabrina understood the hint. She had not even yet given
up hankering for places and partners. She still kept the
floor, when she could, on all occasions, — resisting her
sister-in-law and nieces in their attempts to lay her on
the shelf. She recognized herself, too, as one of the
old maids, — the objects of Mr. Cousin's smirking. So
she now, as the saying is, “put in her oar.”
“I don't know as there 's much to choose,” she said,
emphatically, “between speculators and part'cipators;
one 's as bad as t' other, fur 's I see; an' whatever else
yer may bring agin' Mr. Cousin, yer can't say as ever he
had a censhurious tongue.”
“He was a fair-spoken man,” said Miss Beck, insinuatingly;
“I only hope he was sincere.”
“Briny can swaller flattery as well as any body ever I
see,” remarked Dame Rycker; “it's only the truth that
sticks in her throat.”
“Ask the school chil'en fur a character on him,” suggested
Briny, looking at Miss Beck, and disdaining to
take any notice of her sister-in-law's last remark; “chil'en's
minds are open to the truth; you may trust to their
verdick, good or bad.”
“The chil'ern? Good Lud!” here struck in the mother
of six boys; “ask the chil'ern! when it's been part o'
his business this dozen year to be the corruptin' o' boys.
Why, didn't he give my Sam a pep'mint lozenger atween
meetin's once last summer, that came near upsettin' the
whole congregation? I see the child a-shyin' it inter his
mouth in the middle o' prayer time when he thought I
wan't watchin' him; I snatched at it, an' Sam (Sam's
the hardest boy I've got to manage) he flung it over inter
Widder Klover's pew, and her gal an' boy went to scrabblin'
fur it, an' they made sich a noise that up got Deacon
Clip an' led little Mark out inter the porch, an' boxed his
ears, an' sent him home a screamin' to the top of his lungs.
If that ain't introducin' sin inter the meetin'-house, I
don't know what is. Ask the chil'ern, to be sure! why,
they 'd stand up fur Mr. Cousin if he'd been the evil one
hisself; their nat'ral carnal hearts don't know no better.”
“Wal, he was a spiritooal-minded man, you can't deny
that,” here interposed Briny, who, feeling the last charge
Mr. Cousin's favor; “an' I've heerd my brother Joe say
that if there was any thing sensual in this town, it was
fur a man to be spiritooally-minded.”
“Spiritooally-minded!” cried Miss Beck, with uplifted
hands and eyes; “wal, what next? Briny Rycker, you
must be beside yerself! I never once heerd him speak a
word at prayer-meetin', an' I've attended reg'lar sence
long afore he come to live in this 'ere town.”
“Prayer-meetin'?” said Briny, looking puzzled, “it's
town-meetin' I'm thinkin' on, an' I'm sure our Joe said
Mr. Cousin was the for'ardest man with his team at
breakin' roads, an' the most willin' to lend a hand when
they raised the district school-house, an' allers sent a turkey
to the poor-house at Christmas, an' that it was the
most sensual thing in a parish like ourn fur a man to be
spiritooally-minded.”
“Law, Briny, it's public sperit that Rycker thinks so
'sential; you do discumboberate words so there's no
gettin' at yer idee.”
“Wal, public-sperited, then,” said Briny, a little subdued;
“that 's a good thing, I'm sure.”
“It's not a grace,” remarked Miss Beck, decisively.
“He allers gave liberally at the donation meetin's,”
suggested Briny's sympathizing friend, the tearful female,
who felt the death so much more than Angie, and who,
though to a timid, retiring nature, ventured to come in
feebly to Briny's support.
“To be sure he did,” pursued the reanimated Briny;
in a handsomer remembrance to our good pasture than
many that considered themselves the chosen of the flock,
an' he allers spoke respectful of the pulpit, if he did differ
from it on some disputations p'ints.”
“I trust,” said Miss Beck, with virtuous severity,
“that our pastor is above bein' blinded by the good words
an' works of unbelievers.”
“Works without faith is dead,” interposed the mother
of six boys, misquoting Scripture in her zeal.
“And death is the wages of sin,” promptly added
Dame Rycker, pointing towards the inner room where the
coffin lay, as if some extraordinary proof of her words
was there demonstrated.
“An' after death comes the judgment,” was the conclusive
asseveration on the part of Miss Beck, who, as
she spoke, drew back to make room for Dominie Van
Zandt; and by her low reverence as he passed, seemed to
imply that she looked to him as the final authority who
might presently be expected to pass sentence on him whom
they had condemned already.
Silence now succeeded the hum of voices which had
preceded the pastor's entrance. All pressed forward to
secure good places. Even Briny Rycker and her friend,
put down as they had been in argument, were among the
foremost in this new contention for precedence. The men,
who had hitherto been loitering round the yard and outbuildings,
spying out the nakedness of the land, and blaming
the late owner's mismanagement and want of thrift,
soon settled itself, those who could not find room within
swarming around the open doors and windows, and the
burial service began.
It consisted of exordium, exhortation, and thanksgiving,
all under the form of a devotional exercise, and was
throughout stiff, formal, and unimpressive. It was no
stinted performance, occupying as it did nearly the space
of an hour; but as the earlier portion was a statement
of facts, and intended for the audience generally, and the
second of the nature of a warning, and aimed particularly
at Angie, only the last and smaller portion could properly
be deemed a prayer.
There was nothing in Dominie Van Zandt's statement
of the purpose for which they had come together half so
touching as the sight of the father lying there in his last
sleep, and his child — with that face of hers vacant,
except for its strange, appealing stare — standing alone
on the border land which lies somewhere between the
living and the dead.
And there was nothing in his exhortation to the poor
girl, startling and even awful as it was, which promised
edification. The warning to flee from the wrath to come,
to make her peace with God, to hide herself beneath the
Rock of Ages, only had the effect of startling her imagination
and causing her to look hastily from right to left,
like a hunted hare, which feels its peril, but knows not
which way to turn for safety; after which, her eyes, with
an expression of bewilderment, fastened themselves on
disconcerted him if his own had not been religiously
closed against her.
Finally, his prayer of thanksgiving, earnest, vehement,
rhetorical though it might be, was one in which she, poor
thing, could bear no part. It almost seemed to imply
that there was really nothing for which she need be
thankful. The faithful, for whose lives he praised God,
were so described as to include none but the sound believers
of those very doctrines against whose narrowness and
bigotry Mr. Cousin had always contended; the hopes of
salvation on which the dominie expatiated were so arbitrarily
limited as to exclude all those whom poor Angie
had ever loved from any share in the inheritance; even
the heaven, on whose coming glories he dwelt at length,
produced the impression on one's mind of a strong-walled
fortress, built purposely to keep out the many, rather than
of the Father's house, wherein even a few were blessed.
The chief mourner on this occasion could scarcely be
expected to thank God for condemnation, hopelessness,
and an outcast's lot, either in this world or the next.
The audience generally were satisfied though, especially
the more self-righteous among them, who, while congratulating
themselves on their own security, rejoiced
that the dominie had done his duty, and held out no delusive
hopes to any one; and as for Angie, it did not matter
much. The directness of the minister's charge, the style
of expressions he employed, had indeed startled her, as
the rustling of branches startles the poor beast that is
words left no impression. She was not in a condition
to weigh their meaning. Every one who has come out
of grief and solitude, knows the effect which a crowded assemblage
and a formal ceremony produce upon the nerves.
Angie had wept herself calm before the funeral hour
arrived; but she was in no way prepared for this sudden
inroad upon half a year's seclusion. From her vague
sense of wonder at finding herself the object of so many
eyes, she had gradually been passing through all the
stages of bewilderment, awe, and terror, until her stock
of self-control was well-nigh exhausted.
When the prayer ceased, when the bearers took away
the corpse, from the mere presence of which she had
hitherto found support, and she was left with only a
vacant space in front of her, her forced rigidity gave
way. She made one bound forward, as if to reclaim the
precious burden they were carrying out; then, recollecting
herself, cast a frantic glance at the circle of faces around
her, and reading only curiosity in their steady gaze, felt
perhaps for a moment as some snared wild creature
might do on suddenly finding itself caged, and, flinging
out her arms as if to grasp at some support, uttered a
shrill, wailing cry.
All drew back, many startled, some moved to pity;
they glanced anxiously at her and at one another, but
no one came forward to offer help or comfort; no one
dared, perhaps, for there was something almost threatening
in her look. A voice in the door-way now announced
were waiting for the mourners to head the funeral procession.
Still no movement. There was a pause, then
a murmur, a break in the ring, and the stern clergyman,
who had retired at the conclusion of the prayer, came
forward, stern no longer, but gentle, pitiful, fatherly.
“My child, come! come with me!” he said, and
made a motion to lead her away. She looked up into his
face, as if to read there “friend?” or “foe?” A tear
stood on his eyelid, a genuine tear, shed for her, called
forth by that orphan cry. A ray of sunlight caught
the drop and it glowed with prismatic hues.
“Ilka blade o' grass keps its ain drap o' dew.'
her heart from its blighting drought. She kept it well.
It was the first of many drops sent to restore her soul.
Blessings on it! it answered her better than words, —
was more to her than any prayer.
He drew her arm tenderly through his. “Come with
me, my dear,” he said again, in a persuasive whisper,
broken by emotion. She clung to him as a dove to the
ark, and he led her away.
The people followed, but they were behind her now,
out of sight. She could weep without their knowledge;
and she did weep, for kindness had unlocked the
fountain, and the refreshing tears flowed again.
The dear old man was no restraint. He guided her
gently along the road-side and across the fields, remembering
a long walk from the farm-house to the graveyard, and
he did not venture to disturb her by a word. Still,
when they stood at length by the open grave, his massive
form interposed between her and the crowd, and his
arm supporting her tenderly while she watched them
lower the coffin, the fierce, wild, rebellious spirit was
gone out of her and she was calm. He took her home
by a circuitous path through the fields, thus avoiding the
curious eyes of the neighbors who might be loitering
along the road-side, watching for her return.
“You will not stay alone here to-night, poor child!”
he said, with paternal solicitude, as they reached the
door.
She shook her head in the negative, and pointed
towards Margery's cottage.
“That is good!” he said; “that is good! I could
not sleep in peace to-night if you were to be left here
alone.”
Kind old man. He was not so exclusive in his notions,
after all, as to believe that one's earthly peace is consistent
with the knowledge of another's pain, however he
might define heavenly joys. Angie thanked him by a
look.
“And Sunday,” he said, after a little hesitation,
“Sunday you will come to church.”
A reluctant expression passed over her face. Her
form shrank nervously — she turned away her head.
“Not come?” he said, in a tone of disappointment.
The thought of it haunts me in my pulpit, and intrudes
itself into my prayers.”
Ah, poor, weak, old man! He had not been able to
quite shut her out of the sacred places then, sinner
though she was.
He waited a while to see if she would not relent, but
she gave no sign of yielding.
“Not to please your old pastor?” he said at length,
coaxingly.
She half turned towards him, saw enough of his face
to read how much in earnest he was, and putting a
strong constraint upon herself, answered promptly,
“Yes, I will come.”
“That's right!” he said, taking both her hands in his,
approvingly. “That's a good girl; God bless you!”
He was going now, but something moved him still
further to add, laying a hand solemnly on her head, as
he had once done, months before. “And He will bless
you. Do not doubt that you have a Father in heaven!
trust every thing, both in the past and the future, to him;
fear nothing; remember that his mercy is infinite.”
Inconsistent old man! Where now are his narrow
creed, his pitiless judgments, his irrevocable decrees? He
has either risen above or fallen below them all, as how
many like him, in every age and of every faith, have done,
when Humanity has pleaded against dogma.
Blessings, then, on the heart that was wiser than the
head. The dominie might argue as he pleased on the
the heart would still appeal from the doctrine to the
man. The harsh outlines, the severe coloring of his theology,
mattered not to Angie, so long as looking in childlike
veneration to him, she beheld an earthly portraiture
that aided her conception of the Highest. Could
angels be less pitying than he, God less loving, heaven
less near? She asked not; it was something (for the
present it was enough for her) to love, to trust, to believe
in him.
| CHAPTER XVIII.
THE DROP OF DEW. Haunted hearts | |