Hagar a story of to-day |
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| 15. | CHAPTER XV. |
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 | CHAPTER XV. Hagar |  |
15. CHAPTER XV.
There comes a token like a serpent's sting.
Byron.
Precodes the will to think, and error lives
Ere reason can be born.
Congreve.
A stubborn and unconuerable flame
Creeps in his veins and drinks the stream of life.
Rowe.
fall listlessly, and the eyes fasten on the ground; darkness has
no terror for us, nor the light a charm; scarcely would we
turn aside for the ashes blown against us from the pit, or pause
for the golden shadows that fall from the bastions of the City
of Peace. I tremble to think how a sudden tempest of passion
may sweep over us, and, before reason has time to nerve herself
for defense, prostrate and leave our poor humanity in
ruins—ruins which only the life beyond the grave may build
into beauty again—that life to which we are lifted on the white
wings of prayer, far over the rushing waves of sorrow—far
over the stagnant waters of a hopelessness of the mercy of
Heaven.”
Hagar paused; and, closing the volume from
which she had been reading, seemed lost in
listening, though she could not understand, arose,
and twining her arms about the neck of the young
nurse, kissed her cheek, quietly, unobtrusively,
saying in a sweet and childishly beseeching tone,
“Dear Hagar, I want you to read more.”
The sunlight brightly shimmered through the
drapery of the window, and illumined the faces of
the woman and child. The flowers, which grew in
vases of porcelain, with only a handful of the
brown moist earth, in which to take root, blossomed
out, white and yellow and scarlet, leaning
softly to the light. The child reached her hand
toward the slant column of shining beams, but the
woman sat motionless and pale in oppressive
reflection, and not till the request was twice or
thriee repeated did she notice it, when, opening
the book at random, she read:
“The spider works and works, and the silvery tissue
widens, thread after thread; but a dew drop falls too heavy,
or a breath of wind blows too strong, and the frail fabric is
gone; and so we add plan to plan, and involve thought with
thought, building up theories and systems, whose foundations
are unstable as the slim limbs and tremulous leaves beneath
the spider's web. The rock is before us, but we pause on the
sand. With a cloud of unbelief we sweep the stars out of
heaven, and fearfully and vainly work on the dark. Oh,
Time! dim, and fading, and troubled! thy wings are too narrow
to shelter the soul.”
“Read on,” the child said, fascinated perhaps
by something sweet and touching in the girl's
voice, at times almost tremulous, as if the fountain
of her inmost nature were stirred.
heaven, and, discrowning their brows of love, recrowned them
with iron and thorns, the moaning through the universe will
not be still. Sweat must dampen the wheat sheaves, and
tears moisten the rose wreath, and the bridal hymn must bring
up echoes from the grave. Shall we not enjoy the broken
music that is left? shall we pine out of life for that we have
not the food of angels? shall we bide the pitiless storm, when
the home roof might shelter us? We have need of the
strongest defense against the enemies that are in the world,
busy all the time—Doubt, and Change, and Pain, and Death.
If the sea-rocks are not enough for a strong wall, let the
river-reeds be gathered—there may be rents which they will
fill. Little children, with singing, may break them off, and
our safety be made, if not perfect, at least very good and
beautiful.
“We may put on a fair outside, and assume the gloss of
truth, till we make ourselves never so fair; we may cry out
Peace when peace is broken, and Courage when our bosoms
shake with fear; with a lie we may deceive the world, winning
hearts to us all along the journey of life; but we cannot
deceive ourselves. And, after all, perhaps the bitterest of our
punishment is, that the world thinks better of us than we are.
“There is no such pitiable wretch as the successful hypocrite.
To an enemy that we have made, and deserve to have
made, we may yet present an opposing front; but the friendly
hand disarms us—we must smile, smothering conscience, fearing,
too, that every glance is a cunning searcher—every kindest
word laden with suspicion of our hearts. We do not
know, when we envy or execrate the bad, how artificial or
know how often they have sat in the tents of sorrow, nor how
much of remorse and shame they have been compelled to
carry in their bosoms.”
And Hagar desultorily turned over the leaves
of the book, until another passage arrested her
attention.
“I have no words to paint her beauty: she was the fulfilled
dream of my boyhood—young, and trusting, and innocent,
and lovely: all I ever desired was in my arms—rather,
all I would have desired, but for defying and damning pride.
She was poor, and I was rich; she was humble, and I was of
a high position. And she was gentle and pure—better, how
infinitely better than I!—yet I cast her from me, and am alone.
But the sea is not wide enough, nor the mountains high
enough, to divide her from my visions. Her reproachful face
comes between me and the sunshine. I take in my hands the
golden lengths of her curls, and say, over and over, `Love, I
love you,' but she will not smile upon me any more.
“She is dead, and I am living—dead, and it was I who made
her grave. To the home of her girlish innocence I dare not go.
Once it was a picture of repose, girt about with beautiful
flowers—now, I know not what—and a mother's abhorring
arms press me back from ever seeing it hereafter.”
And again she read:
“What am I? and what have I been? and what shall I be?
These are the questions that torment me. I have been
wicked, and have stripped myself for the scourge. I have
been rebellious, and have prayed as one who had a right
to be heard. I have climbed against the darkness, trusting
in my own strength, till, faltering and unequal, I have fallen,
wormwood, hiding my eyes from all God's beautiful world;
and light, from the beams of the cross, has brightened my
way; but my human life must be henceforth a wandering echo
of the past, and all the future is hidden, perhaps in mercy, from
my eyes.”
Still the child sat listening, as if in perfect sympathy
with every word, when the reading was interrupted
by a tap at the door, which preceded the
entrance of Mr. Frederick Wurth, who sometimes,
failing of amusement, came to the nursery, rather
to converse with Hagar than to see his child. He
was smiling good-naturedly, as was his wont, and
holding in his hand an open letter.
“What are you reading—a new romance.?”
Without speaking, Hagar turned the lettering
of the volume toward him.
“A famous author that man is becoming; he
would not have earned such a reputation in the
profession he deserted, though he had talents for
anything. Jo Arnold said once to me he was the
most eloquent preacher he ever heard, and I said
the same thing to Jo.”
“Who is Jo Arnold?”
But without replying, Mr. Wurth took the
volume out of her hand and read the title page,
saying, “I wanted to see if he still retained the
“reverend,” but I see he simply writes his name,
Nathan Warburton.”
Hagar said nothing, and he continued, “What
an excitement there was when he left his church
here and the ministry, for foreign travel!”
“Not so much excitement as reluctance to part
with him, was there?”
“No, you are right—reluctance to part with
him; but some thought he was out of his mind.”
“I never thought him so; he seemed to me oppressed
with some private grief, some bereavement,
perhaps.”
“Yes, some private grief or bereavement: no
doubt of it. But how does he write?”
“There are passages in the book which seem to
me very characteristic, but I should say the author
was a wretched man, who scarcely knew his own
purposes.”
Mr. Wurth took the book from her hand, and
glancing over it a moment, said, “Yes, just so—a
wretched man that scarcely knows what he is aiming
to do.”
“He has been traveling a great while—I wonder
if he will ever come home—he would scarcely
become a voluntary exile for life? No, he will
hardly become an exile for life!”
There was a long pause; little Catharine had
climbed on the knee of her father, and was fallen
asleep; he smoothed her black curls with his hand,
and as if for the first time aware of their depth of
which, though called black, seemed almost brown
in comparison.
`Really,” he said with a look of surprise, “I never
knew before that you wore false hair—lose your's
by sickness?”
“I have had occasion to wear this for several
years.”
“That is unfortunate. But Katy grows heavy,”
he continued, for his mind never dwelt long on
any one thing—“ `a little heavy, but no less divine,'
as my friend Jo Arnold would say.”
“You spoke of him before: who is he?” Hagar
asked, as she took the child and placed her on the
bed, bending over her to hide the tears which
would have betrayed how little interest she felt in
the question.
Mr. Wurth explained, and added to the brief
biography, that he would not have believed a man
could so change, if he had not seen it with his own
eyes. “It seems,” he continued, “the metamorphosis
was brought about, at least in part, by this
very Mr. Warburton we have been talking about.”
“Is it possible! And is the change for good or
for evil?”
Mr. Wurth laughingly shook his head, saying,
“Jo used to be a good, easy, devil-may-care sort of
fellow, and now he is a zealous divine.”
“Then the change is for the better.”
“Yes, I should think it must be for the better;
but here are two letters from him, with a year's
difference in the dates,” and he threw them into
Hagar's lap, assuring her they would explain themselves.
It was one of the necessities of Mr. Wurth's
nature to talk to somebody; and it made little
difference to whom, for he never thought of losing
caste. And in some way he had fallen into that
singular hallucination, that what interested himself
must necessarily interest everybody else; so, from
time to time he brought for Hagar to read, private
letters, written, it might be, by a maiden aunt, and
of a knitting-work character; or by a gay cousin,
who talked of pleasure and made witticisms; or
by some one else, who could by no possibility have
composed a sentence to interest a stranger, ignorant
of his fears, friends, or foes. These missives Hagar
read because accustomed to do whatever was
required of her, never seeming to have any will of
her own: but the two by Joseph Arnold seemed to
claim her thought as well as her eyes. The first
began—
“Dear Fren—This is Sunday, and deuced hot and uncomfortable.
I have been lying under a maple by the mill-stream—my
line thrown out a little way below, and a new
book in hand—one of those bewildering productions which are
making so much noise—of course you understand: that
never forgotten that sermon—so full of eloquent warning to
the sinner—so luminous with hope, comforting to the afflicted:
the very words seemed leaning to the heart; and how well
I remember his saying, `Oh, she was good, and in her life
and her death alike beautiful! knowing her goodness, shall it
be to us a barren thing? shall we not also shape our lives
into beauty? shall we not wash and be clean?' But a truce
to sermonizing. My coat is threadbare, and my pockets
empty, but as soon as opportunity occurs I mean to do something.
When I left the house Nancy had her bonnet on to
go to church, but the discovery of a hole in her stocking
obliged her to wait, and as the children had used the darning
yarn for a ball, and she had dropped her thimble in the well,
I fear she must be disappointed. And William too—poor fellow!
I left him waiting patiently, and looking much as if he
had dressed himself forty years ago, and never undressed
since.
The next letter spoke of his entrance into the
ministry—of how easy a thing it was to be pure in
heart, and in all ways, obedient to the highest law.
| CHAPTER XV. Hagar | |