University of Virginia Library

5. CHAPTER V.

In a small and simply furnished chamber of a
cottage some fifty miles from New York, the cottage
mentioned in our first chapter, the young girl
whom we called Elsie, was ill, but rather from
mental excitement than any physical disorder.
Sometimes she lay quietly, her hands locked together,
and her eyes closed, wearing on her countenance
an expression of intense suffering; then she
would suddenly rise in her bed and gaze earnestly
forth, as though influenced by an absorbing but
always baffling expectation; and then, turning
away, she would bury her face in her hands, and
sigh so very mournfully that all the pathos ever

shown in tenderest art could scarcely match her
sad display of feeling. And sometimes she would
rock to and fro, and strive to reassure her heart by
repeating fond words and promises, on which she
once relied with certainty; words and promises on
which, poor girl, she could rely no more; and with
this conviction ever suddenly obtruding, to check
bright dreams, her soul grew sick; and falling on her
knees, she would cry, “Have mercy, God! Thou
knowest my weakness and wickedness. Thou,
who fashioned my heart, and made it what it is,
crush me not that I yielded to the instincts of this
nature thou hast given; or if thou withdrawest
thyself, leave me the help of human comfort; in
the bright middle heavens darken not the sun of
love; on the fresh borders of existence wither not
the boughs of the tree of life, nor blacken all its
opening buds. I cry to thee, and thou art silent;
I reach out my arms toward thee till they fall back
aching and weary on a bosom without peace, empty
of hope, of every thing but the sense of thy displeasure
and my ruin. Are the dews of mercy
exhausted that they may not drop against my hot
forehead any more? is the hand of heavenly pity
paralyzed, that it will not unwind the flames which
coil and tighten about my heart! Break asunder,
All Merciful, at least the flaxlike thread of this
existence of agony, in the fires of thy wrath; push
me utterly from being, and give me rest, rest—
eternal rest.”

Thus at times her spirit went wailing up to the
bosom of the Unseen; and again, in stolid silence
closing her lips, she put her human strength and
human weakness against retribution for broken
laws, saying, “I but fulfilled the destiny marked
for me from the beginning, and if the bastions of
heaven lift themselves against me, am I to blame?
or if the black walls of the pit shut me in, can my
weak hands break them down?”

One means of escape only seemed open; but the
way was steep and dark, and she could not willingly
go down alone. Yet hope—when does hope
desert us? not till mortality trembles in its extinction,
and the blessed light of love is lost in the
drowning waters of death.

“My dear child,” said her fond mother, approaching
the bed where Elsie lay, with one hand twisted
in her golden curls, and one so tightly shut that
the nails pressed into the palm: “My dear child,
what can I do to make you well?”

“Nothing! nothing!” answered the wretched
girl, burying her face in her pillow, and forcing
the groan which rose to her lips back into her
heart.

“But think of something I can do; you are so
kind, so good, and fear giving me trouble!” and

stroking back her hair, she tenderly kissed the
cheek of the sufferer, seeing not, for her love, that
she shrank away.

Softly she arranged the pillow, and carefully
folded the counterpane; and telling Elsie to try to
sleep a little, went out for the preparation of some
cordial—such as she fancied—kind and unsuspicious
woman—would bring back the lost light of
health.

Alone, the young girl thrust the covering, so
carefully folded, away, and sitting upright, exclaimed,
“This is the bitterest of all! she called
me her dear, good girl! If she cast me out, and
disowned me, I could live, but this undeserved
kindness and confidence! I cannot bear it.”

The expression of her anguish was overheard;
the door again opened silently, and the same sweet
voice inquired if there was any new suffering.

“It is over now,” Elsie said, struggling to compose
herself, and leaving the bed, she passed to and
fro in the room, her lips moving, but her voice
inaudible. At length an expression of calmness
came over her face, and her eyes rested steadfastly
on the floor, as though some questionable and
agitated point had been decided in her mind. On
the appearance of her mother, with a salver of tea,
and the daintiest food, she betrayed no emotion,
but acknowledged the kindness with a smile, and

ate, as if there were no fires now in her brain, nor
shadows on her heart.

“You will sleep to-night,” said her affectionate
nurse, as she arranged the bed and smoothed the
pillow, “and in the morning feel almost well.”

“Yes, I shall be better to-morrow!” she answered,
but lifted not her eyes to those of her mother,
nor seemed inclined for further conversation; she
only rested her head on the table, by which she sat,
watching the embers—now sending up a flickering
and sudden flame, and now mouldering and dim—
studying prophecies in the fleeting pictures there,
which none but she could see.

But though the silence imported a willingness
to be alone, it was not understood. “What are
you thinking of, my daughter?” the mother asked,
playfully patting her colorless cheek, as she sat
down beside her.

“I was making the embers tell my fortune,” she
replied, “but it is very dark.” There was an earnestness
in her tone, indicative of the interest, if not
faith, felt in the test to which she thus silently
submitted the questions of her destiny.

Suddenly a little flame quivered upward, and
grew stronger, till the room was full of light.

“Thank God!” then she said, “the light will
come at last;” and for a moment a gleam of satisfaction
played on her features, which the mother

saw, and smiled, saying, “I did not know, my
child, you had so much of my foolish superstition.
To-day the black cock perched himself on the dead
bough of the elm at the door, and crowed several
times. `If he crow again,' I thought, `Elsie will
get well, and we shall be so happy.' I knew it was
an idle fancy, a mere chance, and yet my work fell
from my hands, and I listened with a deeper
anxiousness, daughter dear, than I can make you
understand.”

“And did he crow as you hoped?” asked Elsie,
her voice trembling with eagerness and fearful apprehension.

“Oh, I forgot till this moment,” replied the mother,
unpinning and pinning again a small black
shawl she wore about her shoulders, and either not
hearing or affecting not to hear the question, “I
forgot to tell you, Elsie, that John Dale was here
again this afternoon to ask how you were—poor
fellow!”

Elsie moved uneasily, but said nothing, and the
mother continued, as she placed the embers in a
heap, and set aside the great brass andirons, for
which there was no use now: “He had been to
make the last payment on his farm, and seemed in
fine spirits.”

“Then the cock did not crow again!” and she
turned her face from the eyes of her mother and

the blaze which had flashed more brightly, toward
the dark.

“Next summer he will build a beautiful cottage
—the cage before the bird, you know.”

“What if I let go the bird i' the hand, and found
none in the bush?” said Elsie, rather to herself
than to her mother.

“What, dear child?”

“Nothing; I was only repeating a line I have
read somewhere;” and she seemed absorbed in melancholy
musing a moment, and then added, “John
is a good young man, and I hope he will be very
happy.”

“But you will not help to make him so?” And
though the question was lightly asked, Elsie appeared
to think there was serious meaning in it,
and answered sorrowfully, that he had her prayers
and good wishes, but for anything beside it was
too late.

“Yes, he is a good young man, as you say, and
dear, he likes you as he does no one else;” and in
turn the mother spoke sadly. “What time is it,
my daughter?”

“I wish it were morning,” said Elsie—for the
wretched are apt to imagine another time and place
will be better. But it is hard to fly from ourselves:

“I wonder when you will be able to go to
town?” the mother asked; “in two or three days?”

“Oh yes, I am sure I shall be well enough,” and
for the first time that night there was a true earnestness
in what she said. A thousand undefined
hopes sprang into life at a thought of going to the
city. He to whom she was speaking, when first
we saw her, was there; she would see him, and
hold his hands in her own, and look into his eyes,
and call him dear Nattie; and what more could she
desire? She did not ask whether he would call
her “dear Elsie;” she did not care.

The matron continued her silent musing; but
her thoughts were not of “Nattie,” they were of
the new dress and bonnet which Elsie should wear
at Mary Crane's wedding, where she would be sure
to meet John Dale.

“Oh, yes, I should like so much to go to town—
it would make me well, I know!” and, almost
trembling, she awaited a reply, saying she felt
better that night.

Little cared she for the new dress, though well
she knew what hopes and wishes were in her
mother's heart. She had as yet used no artifice to
deceive, and with this, but without any attempt at
undeceiving, she tried to quiet her conscience.

With what shallow arguments we strive to build
our weakness into strength!

After the first little swerving from right, the
step into positive wrong is easy, and the next descent,
and the next, and the next, easier still, till
there rises between our sinking feet and the daylight
of beauty and innocence, a mountain of
darkness, as a curse, against which the soul has no
power to rise. Such conviction—fruit of the knowledge
of good and evil planted in every heart—
swept at times the consciousness of Elsie, darkening
away the light of peace, as the whirlwind
buries blossoms in dust, or a cloud covers the stars.

In vain she tried—there was no avenue of escape.
When her little brother climbed on her
knees, and kissed her, again and again, she smiled,
and would have answered his caresses as fondly,
yet her arms clasped themselves coldly and weakly
about his neck. She had never loved him more,
never so much, as now, but his innocent love was a
reproach, and she grew dumb before him.

They called her changed, and abstracted—softer
names for coldness and selfishness—but could they
have seen the bleeding heart, with its yearning
but repressed affections, over which the smile beamed
so faintly, and the silence brooded so coldly, the
harsh judgment must have been unspoken, and
reversed.

When the boy left her she called him back, and
when he came she sent him from her, gazing on
him with looks intensely mournful, such as the
mother gives a child from whom death is pressing
her away. “Mother!” she called often, and when
her mother came, there was nothing she would
have, but sometimes she would hide her face, and
ask forgiveness for the trouble she had caused, and
again look on her with such beseeching earnestness
as cannot be described with any words. So the
days and the nights went by, and the lover came
not, nor sent any token of remembrance; but
forsaken and wretched as she was, Elsie grew
calmer and stronger. She had resolved on her
course.

No life is utterly joyless that is subject to a great
purpose. The Will has something of that power
the Master said belonged to Faith, to which it is
related so nearly as often to be distinguished from
it only with great difficulty. The schoolmen have
debated of it much, and many hold that it must
bend to other forces; but from all that I have
read in histories, or seen in life about me, Will is
sovereign over everything but God, whose own
most fit description is the Highest Will. Into
the heart and brain of Elsie came suddenly this
inspiration, and she looked bravely out on her
future, from the sight of which she before shrank

appalled; and she saw the mountains moving, and
day again, brighter and fairer for the blackness and
terror of the receding night, blooming and shining,
far, far away, to where it mingled with the eternal
light.