 | Pictures of country life |  |
HASTY WORDS, AND THEIR APOLOGY.
“Get out of my way!” said Luther Brisbane, pushing the
gate against the little girl whose face was pressed on it. He
was just coming home from school, two miles away, and in
no very amiable humor—having made bad recitations that day,
and failed of receiving his customary honors.
“I thought the gate opened the other way,” answered the
child, modestly, and stepping confusedly aside.
“There is but one right way to do anything,” replied the
boy, “and this is the right way to open the gate; and shoving
it roughly against the little girl, he went hastily down the
smoothly-gravelled walk, without once again turning his eyes
towards her.
She looked after him, feeling sorry for the offence she had
given, but quite at a loss what to say; and when he disappeared
round the corner of the house, her slim little fingers
were pulling at one another, and her brown eyes slowly filling
with tears.
“Well, my son,” said Mrs. Brisbane, looking up from her
work, and smiling, as he entered the room where she sat, and
dashed himself into a chair, sachel in hand, and hat lowered
over his brows.
He made no reply to her pleasant salutation; but fixed his
was well used to that ungracious demand, but she was Luther's
mother, and humored the selfish caprices of her son, as fond
mothers are likely to do.
She put down her work at once, and slipping the sachel from
Luther's arm, hung it in its proper place, and then removing
his hat, smoothed away the heavy black hair from his forehead,
and said she would have the supper prepared at once, she was
sure he must be very tired and hungry. “Yes, as tired and
hungry as I can be,” said Luther, lopping his head heavily
against his mother, and never once thinking she might be tired
too. He was the only son, and his parents, not a little proud
of him (and indeed there was a good deal in him to be proud
of), had given way to his natural strong will, till it had grown
to stubbornness, a stubbornness quite too hard to melt, and
which, if subdued at all, must needs be broken by some terribly
sharp blow. Perhaps those little fingers, in their workings,
were gathering strength for such a blow—we shall see.
Luther saw that it was a little girl's dress his mother was
sewing on; but he was too proud to seem interested in little
things, and without appearing to notice her occupation, threw
himself at full length on the sofa, and taking up book after
book, went over the day's studies in good earnest. But it was
not his nature to forget himself long, or allow others to forget
him; and suddenly, without regard to his mother's preoccupation,
he took off his waistcoat, and throwing it at her feet, said,
“That must have two buttons sewed on,” which meant, of
course, “You, my mother, who should have nothing to do but
attend to my wants, must sew them on.”
For once she did not allow herself to be interrupted, but kept
dress she was making.
“I say, mother, did you hear?” said Luther, holding his book
aside, and fixing his grey eyes upon her after the old fashion.
“Yes, my son,” she replied, “but I can't do it just now.”
“Why can't you?”
Mrs. Brisbane said simply that she was busy—perhaps
Luther thought she would explain what she was busy about,
and why the work was urgent; but she did not, and pushing
the curtain back, further and further, as the light grew dim,
and lifting the sewing a little closer to her eyes, kept on.
Luther would not for the world ask his mother what she was
doing—he was quite above such trifling interests, or wished
to be thought so; but try as he would, he could not suppress
the wonder as to whether the dress was for the little girl he
had seen at the gate; and, if so, why it was for her; and why
indeed, she was there. With every shadow that crossed the
door he glanced aside from the page, but he saw not the little
girl he looked to see.
Presently he might have been seen coming round the corner
of the house, whistling carelessly, and looking for nothing in
particular—certainly not for the little girl, for scarcely did he
turn his head towards her.
She was sitting on the border of grass at the edge of the
walk close by the gate, where Luther had left her, and with
one hand was pulling the curl out of her brown hair, while the
other rested on the head of the big watch-dog that lay with his
speckled nose half buried in the turf at her feet.
Luther mounted the steps of the portico, and looking in all
directions but where the dog was, whistled for him loudly—perhaps
eyes looked steadily at the ground; and when the dog, slipping
his head from beneath her hand, trotted down the walk, she
remained quiet, looking on the ground all the same, only
betraying that she felt herself observed, by pulling her scanty
skirts over her bare feet.
Luther petted and scolded the dog by turns, but without
eliciting any notice from the child; he then took his play-fellow's
ear in one hand, and raced up and down the walk, close
to her feet, but she, turning slightly aside, picked out the grass,
spear by spear, never once lifting her brown eyes.
She had gone to the gate to meet and welcome him home;
he had given her the unceremonious greeting recorded, and no
second friendly overture would she make. Luther had found
his match: half way down the walk he stopped suddenly,
exclaiming, “Oh, I have found something beautiful; whoever
comes for it may have it.” Now, there was no one to come
except the child at the gate; but he had not called directly to
her, and she would not go. Luther now sat down on the bank
and fixed his grey eyes on the little girl (for he was not used to
be so disregarded), but in vain were all his looks of displeasure
when she would not see them.
He was sorry in his heart for what he had said, but he would
not openly acknowledge it; and modulating his voice to something
like entreaty, he said, “Come here and see what I have
found.”
“It is nothing that belongs to me,” the child answered, for
the first time lifting up her eyes.
Encouraged by the mildness of her voice, he added, authoritatively,
“I tell you to come and see.”
“I will not,” answered the little girl, tossing the curls from
her bare brown shoulders, and returning his gaze.
“Well,” said Luther, “if you won't come for it, you shan't
have it—that's all;” and he affected to put something in his
pocket.
“I don't want what is not mine,” she replied.
“But how do you know that it is not yours?”
“Because,” said the child, wiping her eyes with her hand,
“I had nothing to lose.”
Luther regarded her more attentively now, and saw that she
did not look as if she had much to lose—her dress was faded
and outgrown so much, that, try as she would, she could not
make the scanty skirt stay over her bare brown feet. One by
one the tears fell from her eyes slowly down her cheeks, and
with each that fell the boy took a step towards her. He had
not spoken as yet, however, when the gate opened, and Mr.
Brisbane entered. He brushed aside the brown tangles that
had fallen down the little girl's cheeks, gave her a flower which
he had in his hand, and led her down the walk towards the
house, saying to Luther as they came where he was standing,
“This is to be your playmate hereafter, my son;” and as he
spoke he joined the hands of the two little folks, telling the girl
that that was his son, and his name was Luther; and the boy,
that the girl's name was Almira Curtiss.
“Myrie—my mother called me Myrie,” said the little girl.
“But it is not right, for all that,” said the boy.
Myrie spoke not; but her fingers loosened their hold of the
boy's hand; and though they entered the house side by side, it
was in dissatisfied silence on the part of both.
Thus much of the first acquaintance of the lover and lady, as
and comfortable home of good Mr. Brisbane (for he was a
good and exceedingly benevolent man), there had lived—and
the day previous to the opening of our story, died—a widow,
whose only wealth was her virtues and her little Myrie. When
Mr. Brisbane had prayed at her dying bed-side, she had said.
“What shepherd will take care of my little lamb till the heavenly
shepherd calls her?” and he had laid his hand on the
drooping head of the little girl, and comforted the mother with
the assurance that the orphan should not be forgotten.
And the funeral was over, and the mother laid to rest—to
that deep, deep rest, to which she had gone gladly—the
promise had been kept; and Myrie had opened her brown eyes
wonderingly to feel the kiss of a stranger on her cheek.
The door of the empty and poor little house where she was
born, and where all the nine years of her life had been passed,
was closed behind her; and in a pretty carriage, drawn by gay
sleek horses, she was carried to a new home—a very fine one
as she then thought. So came the meeting of the little folks—
the poor orphan and the rich man's son.
When Myrie had been living two years at Mr. Brisbane's,
she went one day to pick berries a good way from the house.
When she came near the hedge where the blackberries grew,
she saw on the next side-hill a boy not much older that herself,
binding sheaves of wheat in the sunshine. Sometimes he
stopped to pick the briers from his fingers or his feet, for he
wore no shoes, and was indeed in all respects poorly clad. He
did not sing or whistle as he bound up the bundles, but stooped
along the hill-side as though work was his doom. Myrie
stopped quite still to look at him—his patched trousers, and
and if she had done as her heart inclined, she would have put
down her basket and assisted him for an hour or two at his
tiresome work.
It was so cool and pleasant where she was, for the wild
grape-vines were looped from limb to limb along the hedge
where the briers grew, that she every now and then turned to
observe the poor tired worker in the hot sunshine.
Her basket was not yet half full when the twittering and
fluttering in the leaves overhead were greatly increased, a
sudden gust of wind turned the leaves all wrong-side out, and
a heavy black shadow ran along the hill, chasing the sunshine
away. She ran out of the hedge to see if the sun was going
down, it was so dark; and taking off her hood, turned her face
towards the sky, where the blackness was becoming dense.
There was a flash of blinding light and a thunder-peal that
seemed for a moment crashing the sky, and then went rumbling
and muttering into silence.
Plash, plash in her face came the heavy rain drops.
The little boy threw down the bundle he was binding, and
bending forward as he ran, came towards the hedge.
“Here, little girl,” he said, as he parted the heavy tangles
of leafy vines that roofed a scrubby tree, and drooped around
it almost to the ground: “come in here, and the rain will
never touch you.”
She was quick to avail herself of the offered shelter, and in
a moment the two children were sitting side by side on a mound
of turf, listening half afraid and half delighted, to the music of
the rain on the broad green leaves above them.
“Don't be afraid,” the boy would say, again and again, after
he said so often, “Don't be afraid,” he was greatly awed, if not
fearful, and with every flash uplifted his hands—appealing
involuntarily for protection.
Presently the rain found its way through the leafy roof, and
the curls of Myrie were full of it; but the violence of the storm
was past now, and little cared the children for the plashing of
the bright drops on their heads, or in their faces. It was
natural they should begin to talk about going home as the storm
subsided, and then it was that the homes, and afterward the
names of the strangers, became known to each other. Charles
Robinson was the name of the lad—he had no father, nor
mother, nor other friend, he said—he was lately come to the
neighborhood to seek his fortune, and chanced to be at the
time in the employ of the farmer who owned the adjoining
wheat field. He brushed the rain drops carefully from his
worn hat, saying, half sadly though jocularly, that he should be
very sorry to have it spoiled.
Myrie told how poor she had been, and how poor she was
then, except for the kindness of the good man with whom she
lived, for she felt that her pretty bright dress contrasted with
the old soiled clothes of the boy, and she knew that he felt it
too, and in the gentle goodness of her heart, tried to make
their positions as nearly equal as she could—for Myrie was not
proud or willful, except to those who towards her were proud
and self-willed.
Charley smiled, for he felt the kindness, and for a moment the
dew came to his eyes; but having twisted off a handful of grass
that grew up pale and tender in that shady bower, by way of
diverting his thoughts, he brushed the rain drops from the thick
stepped resolutely out into the sunshine—for the clouds were
breaking up, and hedge and wheat field, and the wet woods
close by, were all shining in a flood of splendor. The birds
were singing in full chorus, hopping from ground to tree, and
from limb to limb, for their exuberance of joy would not let
them remain quiet. “Come, Myrie,” called Charley, “and I
will help you fill your basket before I go back to my work.”
“But you will lose the time,” answered Myrie, glad of companionship,
yet at the same time mindful of the lad's interest.
“Oh, no matter, I can work by the moonlight—I meant to
do so, at any rate.”
“What for?” asked Myrie.
Charley laughed gayly, and said, “To finish the field's work,
to be sure—what else should I do it for?”
“I thought, perhaps,” said Myrie, half ashamed to place the
sordid calculation beside the generous impulse of the boy—“I
thought perhaps, you would get more money.”
Charley laughed again, and said, “that some way or other
money slipped right through his hands when he had it, and
that he believed he was just as well off without a cent as with
it;” and treading carefully, for the briers were sharp, and his
feet bare, he made his way to where the berries were thickest,
and Myrie's basket was presently heaped almost up to the
handle.
On the hill-side, opposite the wheat field, she turned as she
went towards home and saw Charley bending along the stubble;
he looked up and, with a wave of his old hat, bade her a
second and genial good bye.
“Only see, Lu, what beautiful berries!” and taking the
toward the portico, where sat Luther, with a book before his
eyes.
“Very beautiful!” he replied, scarcely glancing aside from
the page.
“Where have you been!” asked Myrie, in good-natured surprise,
bending one knee on the step at his feet, for she saw
that his shoes, generally so polished, were positively muddy,
and that the hems of his white trowsers were almost dripping
wet, while the usually prim collar lopped, damp and limberly.
Luther did not so much as lift his eyes this time, but in
answer to the question of where he had been, replied concisely,
“in the rain.”
Myrie said not another word, but having adjusted the leaves
that covered her basket, skipped round the corner of the house,
provokingly indifferent.
“Did you see Luther?” asked Mrs. Brisbane, as Myrie came
in; “he has been watching for you this half-hour.”
“I did not think he was watching for me,” she replied; “he
would hardly speak.”
“Well, poor boy,” said the mother, “he is a little vexed, I
suppose, and no wonder; he went out with the umbrella to
bring you home, and could not find you; and besides that, was
caught in the rain, and soiled his clean clothes, as you saw.”
“Oh how sorry I am!” said Myrie, and filling the cup with
the berries, she hastened to offer them to Luther, with the
expression of her sympathy and regret.
“Where were you?” asked he, setting down the cup as
though for his part he cared nothing about blackberries.
Myrie said where she was, and with whom, adding that
saw.
“Dear me,” said Luther, tartly, “if I had known you were
so well protected, I might have spared myself much trouble,
and the danger of getting cold and dying, perhaps.”
Myrie laughed a little derisively, and replied, “that the
warmth of his temper would be likely to keep off a chill;” and
sitting down on the portico, opposite him, amused herself by
humming a tune. Perhaps she thought that Luther would
speak to her; but he did not, and directly, as though the tune
interrupted his studies, closed the volume and retired to his own
room, leaving the berries untouched.
“It would not be Charley Robinson that would ever be so
sullen, I know,” thought Myrie; and as if the thought were
some retaliation upon Luther, she recalled all the pleasant
interview of the afternoon, and at last ended in a dreamy
musing, forgetting Luther altogether.
With now and then some such ruffling of the current as we
have described, the lives of the little folks ran on. Many
a spring they gathered flowers together along the fields and
in the woods—many a morning they planned and planted the
garden—and many a time picked together the white nuts
from the ground, and the red apples from the trees; and so
they stepped up the years, one after another, into manhood
and womanhood, and the blushes many a time shone between
Myrie's curls, when Luther found place for some tender sentiment,
as he instructed her in French, or drawing, or music.
And during these years, Charley Robinson went tossing
about the world, drifting every now and then into his boyhood's
harbor, by chance as it seemed—perhaps it was so, nevertheless
always joyously, demonstratively glad to see him—he always
bashfully, silently, more than glad to see her.
Sometimes his pockets were well lined, and his coat glossy
and new; and at other times his feet were badly shod, and the
brim of his hat not much less torn than of old. Poor Charley!
fortune played all games with him.
He had seen many countries, and a number of the great
cities of the world, picking up some knowledge, but not much
wisdom; enlarging experience, but reaping small profit; now
on the sea as a common sailor, now as a traveller with money
and leisure; sometimes prying stones from the hard quarry,
for the sake of daily necessities, and then again coining money
by this or that chance speculation: but his hands had still the
old trick—the money slipped through them—no poor man nor
woman crossed his path who was not the richer for it, and
often his last shilling went with the rest.
It was nothing Charley said—he would get more some way;
and so he did, but it was often some very hard way. But he
seemed rather to like bad fortune, and put his shoulder to the
wheel with the same desperate energy, no matter how small
the benefit accruing to himself, or if, indeed, the advantage
were all another's—poor Charley! there was no method in his
nature—all was just as it chanced.
Up and down the world were scores of people who had enjoyed
his liberality, and said, “What a good, careless fellow he is!”
and forgotten him, for though a genial companion, the impression
he left was generally cvanescent. There was not in his
character strength and power enough to leave its impress on
others fixed and well-defined.
Luther never, with all the advantages of education and manners,
prospective wealth and respectability of position, and
beloved, as he knew himself to be, felt quite easy in the presence
of the self-cultured and really noble-hearted Charley. He
invariably spoke of him as one so much his inferior as by no
possibility to come in competition with him, but when they met,
Charley compelled from him an acknowledgment of social
equality. For it is hard to frown in the face that smiles upon
us confidingly, or to draw back our hand from a cordial grasp.
But he was careful to repeat to Myrie whatever stories of
Charley's improvidence he could hear, doubtless with no intention
to exaggerate, and yet the character of Charley never
shone the brighter for his handling.
If he had ever said, “My dear Myrie, I am ashamed of the
weakness; but I am pained, jealous if you will, when I see
you so much entertained by the adventurous tales of Charley
Robinson, for I fear the glow of his really generous nature
makes my selfishness seem all the darker.” If he had said
this, or anything like this, Myrie would have told him frankly
and truly that Charley was to her like some poor brother who
had shared all the hardships of her cabin-home, and with
whom her sympathy, in consequence of shared pain and poverty,
was very close; that is seemed her duty as well as pleasure to be
to him strength and comfort—to make, as it were, a dewy morning
in the weary workday of his life; for lightly as he talked,
and gayly as he laughed over the struggles he had had with adversity,
she knew that it was not in human nature to be insensible
to suffering—that “the flesh will quiver where the pincers
tear,” however the martyr may suppress the groans.
But such was not the course of Luther Brisbane; he would
make void his real fear by pretence of its non-existence; and
by the frequent assertion of supremacy and declaration of his
dislike of Charley, he called out defences from Myrie, which
she would never otherwise have made; and whatever woman
is required to defend, she speedily learns to love; so, whatever,
coolness Luther showed the young man, she atoned for by a
double warmth.
When Luther went away to college it was with a heart
quite at rest. Charley was gone, Heaven only knew where.
When he came to say good bye to Luther that young man had
treated him with unusual cordiality—he quite received him
into friendship, even to confidence; it is to be hoped he did
not know the full extent of the harm he was doing, that he
was in truth but softening a heart that he might press the
thorn down deep.
As they sat under the summer trees together, the young collegian
unfolded to his pleased listener the plan of his future
life, the crowning bliss of which was, of course, to be
his marriage with Myrie, to whom he was already betrothed.
The next day Charley was gone from the neighborhood, no
one knew why nor where. The full moon that had shone so
brightly over the lovers the night past had lighted his lonesome
steps—anywhere he cared not, so it was to new scenes
and new adventures; yet every step that divided him from
Myrie, stirred the thorn that was in his heart, and made it
bleed afresh. Poor, poor Charley!
There is a sort of love, if love it may be called, that only
lives upon opposition—it will break down every barrier, climb
to every height, and descend to every depth, to obtain its
for the butterfly, prompting the chase through brier and
bush, up steep places, and over rough grounds—but when the
treasure is captured, the passion dies—the pretty wings,
handled roughly, lose all their beauty; and feeble and spiritless,
the insect is let go to creep and flutter as it can, admired
of its captor never more. It is, perhaps, wrong to
call what is only love of power, love—but I have called
it so, because it is a counterfeit that passes current in most
places. Selfish natures, wishing to subdue all things to their
own interests, are apt, I think, to deceive themselves; and it
is not that those men are hypocrites beyond all others who
smile, and smile, and murder while they smile, but simply more
ambitious of subjugating others to themselves. It may be
that Luther so deceived himself.
After the first sorrow of separation, no bird in the meadows
was so happy as Myrie; you might hear her singing under the
trees, and skipping nimbly about the garden, now telling the
dog about his absent master; sometimes, indeed, she would
sit in her chamber for an hour or more; but if you could
have peeped over her shoulder, you would have seen that she
was writing and rewriting letter after letter, and yet all the
same letter; for one and all began with “Luther, dear Luther,”
and ended with “Luther, dear Luther.” She was trying to
maker her letter good enough to send to him—poor, sweet
child!
He had not gone three days, when she began to watch
anxiously for Mr. Brisbane as he returned evenings from the
village where the post-office was; he might bring a letter, she
thought; indeed it was the most likely thing in the world, that
the first inn at which he should stop send back a line to say
how he thought of her every waking moment, and dreamed of
her every sleeping one, and pined to be back in the past, or
away in the reunion of the distant future. She was more
troubled for Luther than for herself—she had so many comforts
of which he was deprived. Could she not sit in the
shade of the very tree where they had sat so often—read the
poems they had read together; and were not these things the
accessories of a closer spiritual communion than he could
have? Ah, yes! Luther had the hardest—had, indeed, all
the suffering. She had flowers, and books and walks, and a
thousand things to assure her and reassure her; but Luther,
poor Luther, could see no evidence of the blessed past out of
his own heart. That, she knew, was filled to aching fullness
with its honied sweets; and she saw that the pleasure of new
sensations and new experiences were his—that his zest of mere
animal life was much keener than hers—that he had, too, the
sustaining stimulus of prospective endeavor and triumph; but
with all, and for all, Luther, poor Luther, had the worst of it.
After the few first evenings, Myrie prolonged her watches
by beginning them an hour too soon; and when in the distance
she saw her guardian approaching, she could not stay within
doors any longer, but would go out to meet him—at first only
to the gate, then to the next hill, and so further and further
as the nights went by and no letter came.
She never said she had come for anything, or expected any
thing; but the smile and eager look with which she always
met Luther's father would presently fade away, and, taking
his hand, she would walk beside him, looking on the ground,
would say, “Nothing,” and that was all.
The color began to fade in her cheeks, except now and then
when they flushed with the old brightness at the thought of
Luther's constancy, or with her own shame for indulging a
doubt. Were there not a thousand reasons for his silence—
the hurry and confusion of settlement, and all the engrossing
occupations of a new life's beginning. She had been foolishly
exacting, and would wait her lover's leisure and pleasure more
patiently. Then the fearful thought would come that he might
be ill, for love is of all passions most tormenting; and in measuring
the strength of his attachment by her own, she could not by
any possibility reconcile herself to the silence. She could not
have thus kept him waiting, if life and liberty were hers, no
matter what else intervened. Then would come the thought of
forgetfulness and desertion, and the mental and bodily prostration
would be followed by the bitter energy of reacting despair;
but this came at moments and at intervals, and for the most
part she felt that some dreadful calamity had befallen her darling;
for, underlying all possibilities and probabilities, was the
deep-seated conviction that, whatever her sufferings, he had the
worst of it.
One week—two weeks—ten days—nearly two weeks were
gone. The caty-dids in the top of the high pear-tree that
grew near the door were noisily welcoming in the early autumn,
and in the distant woods the winds were making that moaning
murmur that comes when the glory of summer is gone: the
sunshine was lessening on the hills, and the gladness in Myrie's
heart was lessening like it. She had scarcely spoken all day,
and yet she was not ill, she said, nor sad; and to every
nothing.”
Mrs. Brisbane, kind, motherly soul, put down her sewing
more than once, and laying her cool, moist hands on the girl's
forehead, besought her to lie down for a little while—to taste
of cordial, or to walk among the late garden flowers, and try
to steal from their beauty some color for her cheeks.
Myrie's eyes would fill with tears; but she would say she
was very well and very happy, and remain quietly gazing away
across the fading woods and hill-tops—she herself knew not
where. It was not the cordial, nor the walk, nor the bodily
rest she required. Poor Myrie!
She thought now, as the sun went down, she was watching
the fading light, and the motion of the leaves, and the darting
hither and thither of the night-hawks, that were come out an
hour before their time; but all the time her eyes kept gazing
in one direction; and if the look fixed itself nowhere, it took in
nearly all the dusty length of the road till it wound down
among the hills beyond the village, where the one spire, beautifully
white, held up its glittering cross. She wondered how Mrs.
Brisbane smiled so cheerfully, and went about the house possessing
her soul in peace—how could she be so calm and fearless of
harm, saying lightly, when she spoke of Luther, that it was
enough, like the boy, to remember them only when he needed
them.
The sun went down, and the owl hooted dismally, as if in
mockery of all gayer sounds, and still Myrie kept the old position.
She would not go to the gate even to meet her guardian that
night; she was trying to believe she was no longer hopefully
expectant, as if she could shut her heart from her heart.
him, and though, to fortify herself against disappointment, she
told her soul over and over that he would not have any letter
—and if he had, it would not be for her—the first approaching
footfalls made her heart beat the brightest color up to her
cheek that had been there for days and days.
She would not turn her eyes towards her guardian as he
came in; but when he said, “here is a letter from Lu,” there
was an involuntary reaching out of her hand, and such an
exclamation of joy as one might make if the dead were brought
to life. It was a very little sheet of note-paper, folded neatly, and
addressed simply, “For Myrie.” “How did you get it!” and
“could it come to me this way?” were Myrie's first happy
exclamations; and when she learned from her guardian that it
had been inclosed in the envelope containing one to himself,
the first enthusiasm was gone. She hardly knew why, but she
would rather have broken the seal, and that the superscription
had been all to herself.
“And how does he excuse himself for not having written till
this late day?” inquired the mother, still evenly drawing up
the threads of her sewing work.
“Let me see what he does say,” replied the father, and,
adjusting his spectacles, he unfolded the letter, and placing the
candle between it and himself, read aloud slowly:—“`Dear
parents, I have been too busy and too happy to write.”'
“There, Myrie,” exclaimed Mrs. Brisbane, interrupting the
reading, “I told you so!”
“I know it,” replied the girl, and, crushing the letter she
held, glided out of the house, the bitter waters that had been
stirring in her heart, brimming over her eyes.
The moon came out of the lonesome woods, and looked
down on her tenderly and sadly, and climbed higher and higher
to the middle of the great quiet sky before she arose from the
seat she had taken under the low apple tree—the same on which
she sat when Charlie stooped over her, and with one kiss
turned heavy-hearted away—how heavy-hearted she felt now
for the first time, for she suffered now with a kindred pang.
It was as if her tears, watering a hitherto unnoticed bud,
caused it to burst open, and she saw what manner of flower it
might have been.
Then, as she smoothed out the as yet unopened note, and
with a step steadier than that with which she came, turned towards
the house, came the thought that had come to her once
before, when she was a little girl. “Charley would not have
done so.” But where was he? She could not tell; but in her
heart she wished heaven would keep him and guide him back
some time, and with no conscious significance, she sang, as she
walked under the moonlight, “Jamie's on the stormy Sea.”
Who shall say that thoughts go not like arrows to their
marks, and leave their impress more or less deep, as spirits are
kindred or impressible.
Luther did not say to Myrie he had been too busy and too
happy to write—he did not intimate any thought of her expectation
of a letter earlier, or of one at all indeed. True, he
began with “Dear Myrie;” but to the reader the words seemed
dead, as it were—there was no earnest and deep meaning in
them. He expressed no fear of her unfaithfulness—there was
nothing to be faithful to, as the letter suggested—no concern
lest she might be unhappy—of course she was happy—why
should she not be? Life was before her, and the choice of her
He did not say he thought of the old walks, or repeated the
old poems; but the entire letter was in a light, flippant strain,
and chiefly about himself, his occupations, plans, and prospects,
with some allusion to the weather, an attempted description of
the scenery about his new residence, ending in an elaborate
account of one of his professors, meant to be exceedingly funny.
He hoped Myrie would write at her leisure and inclination,
and tell him all the news of her little world; and if she found
herself oppressed with any superfluous amount of tenderness,
after duly caring for Brave (the dog), her birds and flowers,
she might bestow it upon him if she could so far forget his
unworthiness, and so oblige her devoted friend and humble servant—Luther
Brisbane. No abbreviation from, nor addition
to, the full and simple name—just as he would have written to
any one else. The butterfly had opened its wings wide before
him—had nestled close in his bosom—he had counted all its
rings of gold and brown, and was willing, nay, glad, to toss it
off his hand.
Strong in health and strong in hope, selfish, proud, and
ambitious, we must let him alone; he will learn, perhaps, by
and by, that affection has taken deeper root in his heart than
as yet he is aware of.
Sometimes Myrie thought she would not write at all—then
she would make bitter accusations, and by showing him how
desolate and broken, and altogether helpless her heart was,
make him, perforce, take it up tenderly, as of old. Then
again she resolved to affect indifference, and reply to his careless
and flippant letter in a tone as careless and flippant as his
own.
Hope and despair, and much suffering, doubtless, ran through
all this unsteadiness of purpose, and whether she in the end
adopted a middle course—now silent, and now speaking, half coldness
and half fondness—I know not, but think this course likeliest;
one thing, however, is certain, the less strength Luther
gave her to lean upon, the more she leaned upon herself.
Choke up the fountain in one direction, and it will make itself
a channel in another; and unless the living waters of love be
dried up at their source, as sometimes happens, they will flow
over something, not unlikely over weeds as well as flowers.
More than a year had passed since Luther went away, and
Myrie was coming at sunset along the dusty path by the road-side,
looking thoughtfully and walking slowly—perhaps she
dreaded to say at home that she had no letter from Luther—
and this was the ninth week since the last one came.
Hard struck the hoofs of a fast rider on the clay of the
beaten and sunbaked road—nearer and nearer they sounded,
and the shadows of the gay horse and hasty rider were just
before her, she turned into the deep dusty weeds and thick
shadows of the low elms that grew by the road-side. The
hands that lay on her bosom, one on the other were suddenly
unclasped, and a voice to which joy lent so solemn and so deep
a music that she scarcely recognized it for Charley's, said
“Myrie!”—how often we turn aside like her and so meet our
fate!
When Myrie wrote next to Luther she told him (who shall
say why or wherefore?) that the social enjoyments of the
neighborhood had been greatly quickened by the unexpected
return of Charles Robinson; and she added, as a pleasant
bit of information, perhaps, that his growth of manly beauty
nearly all, she said about Charley; nevertheless, it was sufficient
to rouse the old jealousy, and make Luther himself again.
The return mail brought a long letter, assuming all the old
authority, if less than the old love.
Night and morning Myrie was heard singing again in her
chamber, in the garden, up and down the dooryard walks.
The leaves faded and fell, and the sun rose and set in the dull
glory that comes duly with the dying year; but the winds were
now pleasant companions to the heart that thought them so
lonesome the year past.
Not unfrequently Charley sat at the supper-table and told
stories, less perhaps, for the good old folks than for Myrie, and
often in the moonlight, under the trees at the door, he sat with
her alone, telling stories still; and under all, felt by both, but
spoken not, was the one story which he did not tell.
Suddenly, without intimation or excuse, Luther appeared at
the old homestead. Without excuse, I said, though he said
he was suffering from ill health, and required relaxation and
quietude. Whether in ill health or not, it is quite certain he
came in ill humor, and that poor Myrie was from the first the
recipient of it. He had grown handsome, grave, and reserved;
but there was one subject which darkened all the beauty of his
face with frowns, and swept away his reserve with a torrent of
angry denunciation—nothing connected with Charles Robinson
would he suffer to be mentioned in his presence, and yet himself
made the most constant allusions to him. He was astonished that
his mother should find entertainment in the inflated inventions
which the vagabond Charley was in the habit of passing off as
experiences. It was quite proper, to be sure, to show a certain
this vulgar person, it was time to put some protecting restraint
upon politeness; he could plainly see, though no one else
could, a pitiful deterioration in the morality of the neighborhood
within the year past, and who so blind as not to know to
whom to trace it all. Why, nobody could be so blind; he was
very sure Myrie could not, she was quite too sensible, too capable
of higher appreciation; he was not in the least afraid of her
being misled by the pleasantries of a mere adventurer—by
what he was sure she knew was but the shining of rottenness.
Oh no, it was not for her he feared; but for the artless and
unsuspecting village girls, not one of whom would be suffered
to escape the serpent's fascinations. He had one sure hope,
however—doubtless the spendthrift would soon find himself reduced
to his customary shameful poverty, and have perforce,
to make another recruiting expedition, and relieve the neighborhood
of his presence, while he pursued his trade of begging,
borrowing, or stealing. Luther was not certain whether to
one or to all the said makeshifts Charles Robinson was addicted.
Some such tirade as this he concluded one day by saying,
“Perhaps Myrie can tell.”
Myrie smiled quietly, and replied, “that as it did not especially
concern her to know in what particular manner Charley
possessed himself of money, she had never made it a subject of
speculation much less of inquiry; she doubted not that it was
fairly won; for one thing she had admiringly observed of Charley,
and that was that when he could not speak of man or
woman in honest approval, he was always generously silent.”
“And so you own to me,” said Luther, biting his lip, “that
you admire this profligate who calls himself Robinson?”
“I admire his abstinence from evil speaking;” and seeing
the frown gathering darker and darker in the face of Luther,
she continued, perhaps with the perverseness and daring of
which we all have our share, “he has many noble and generous
qualities which I admire, and which I wish were more common.”
She hesitated a little on the close of the sentence, and Luther
taking it up, said sneeringly, “which you wish I possessed—
thank you, Miss Almira.”
Now Luther had never once said Almira, much less Miss
Almira, since the day of their first acquaintance, and she smiled
again at the meaning formality. She made no other reply, and
Luther continued, in deepening anger, “Perhaps you would have
me say Miss Curtiss—I will endeavor to gratify you, though
the associations are anything but agreeable to me.” Myrie's
eyes flashed with fiery indignation; but the thought of her
sweet, patient, dead mother, who in all the trial of her hard
life had never dishonored that name, put out the fires with
moisture, if not with tears, and she answered with a slow
speech, that showed she weighed the words as she uttered them;
“As to what you shall call me, please yourself—hereafter you
can neither please nor displease me.” As she finished speaking,
she arose and turned to leave him.
“One moment, Myrie,” said Luther, startled into something
like earnestness, “one moment, till I explain—truly I did not
intend to convey the meaning you have received.” Myrie
turned half round and said, “One moment would not serve to
explain away the bitter meaning of your words—I will give
you a year; yes, twenty of them, if I live so long, to devise an
apology.”
“I wonder” said Mrs. Brisbane, who had come to the door
wonder what can be burning; there is such a great smoke
across the fields, and it seems to me just about where your
mother's house used to stand. I hope no accident has happened.”
Glad of an excuse to be alone, Myrie said she would go and
see.
There are times in life when the saddest memories are comforting;
from the aching of some present grief they draw us
away, and casting a shadow over all our life, make the cloud
and the night less gloomily visible. So as Myrie walked on and
on, she tried to define distinctly the almost forgotten memories
of her childish life; but it was only some isolated experience
here and there, which had been deepened she knew not how,
that she could bring distinctly out of the almost forgotten past of
early childhood. Gradually she could make the picture more
clear—so clear that she trod softly, lest the rough stubbly way
should hurt her feet, for she seemed a little girl again, a poor
bare-footed little girl, and almost believed herself going home
with the scanty earnings of her mother's hard week's work.
She could almost see the pale, anxious face at the window, the
narrow, hard-beaten path leading up to the door, the hearthstones
and the fire, the one better chair than the rest, the
floor so white and so nice, the whitewashed wall, and her own
two or three faded dresses hanging against it. Quite unconscious
of time and distance, she kept on walking and musing as
she walked, till the summit of the slope, on which stood the
little house where she was born, was reached.
A look of bewilderment displaced the one of sorrow that
had been deepening in her face all the way. Could she be
clump of trees, under which she remembered to have played
many a time, while her mother sat by and sewed; the very
trees under which that mother's coffin had rested, when she
for the last time looked upon her; there was the little house
itself, the same, yet not the same. New porches, and new
roof, and new blinds, and new paint had so completely
changed it, that had she seen it elsewhere, it would scarcely
have reminded her of her birthplace. The trees were newly
trimmed, the briers removed from the rear grounds, and these
it was which made the smoke that showed so far away. The
sod was shaven smooth, and the old rose-bushes, carefully
pruned and tied together. She was not yet done surveying
the scene in astonishment when, as her eyes ran down the
walk, she saw Charley Robinson coming forth to meet and welcome
her.
“Come in,” he said, a smile of joy illuminating all his face,
while Myrie was yet in the midst of delighted exclamations
that her poor old home could be made to look like such
a paradise. “Come in and see how you like my style of furnishing.”
How pretty it all was! just as she would have done it herself.
Curtains so fine and so white, chairs and tables so small
and so neat, just as if they had been made for the very cottage
they adorned; and the carpet! what a pattern of beauty
—a green ground, dotted with bright red roses! Who could
have chosen it? Was it Charley, and simply to please himself?
“No, dear Myrie, it was to please you. I thought you
would like to see the old place looking bright and comfortable,
for I am going to live here, and be a sober farmer hereafter.”
There was a mingling of sad and joyful sensations in Myrie's
heart as she walked home, for it had been a long while that
the love had been lessening for Luther, the liking increasing
for Charley; and she could not help saying over and over, as
she remembered what seemed—whether it were so or not—
the taunt of her early poverty, “Charley would not have done
so!” and had he not now given her living proof of his kinder
and nobler disposition? How much tenderness and poetry
were concealed in his careless and seemingly unsusceptible
nature, after all.
It was after midnight when she went to sleep, and then
with a confused image in her mind that was neither Luther
nor Charley—partly one and partly the other; for so sometimes
it seems as if we surrendered to fate, and as for ourselves
had no choice in the matter. To us all there come
seasons when one thing seems little better than another;
when there is nothing that seems very bright, or very much
worth having.
And so, says the reader, they were married, Myrie and
Charley, and lived very happy, and Luther remained a discontented
old bachelor all his life as he deserved to. You
may as well say so at once, for I see that will be the end.
Now, dear reader, I am not a story-maker; if I were I
should perhaps shape fortunes more smoothly sometimes; often
what would seem to me more equitably just; but I am simply
the writer of stories life has made for me, and life's stories or
life's histories do not always run as we would suppose they
sunshine; now where it is extremely rough, and then, for a
little while, along smooth ground, we go on and on, and lose
ourselves in the silent sea.
Myrie's life was not very different from the rest, nor was
Charley's, though his ran faster, and was sooner lost to the
windings and shadows of time than are some others; perhaps,
however, he had his share of the sunshine—who shall
tell?
A letter from Luther's mother was laid one day on his
table where he sat composing what he hoped to be a graduating
honor. The letter was superscribed in the usually clear
and steady hand of his mother, which seemed to say, plainly
enough, that all at home was well. That was all Luther
cared to know; so he thought, and so the letter lay till he
penned sentence after sentence. Coming to the foot of a
page, he glanced along it with a satisfied smile, tossed it
aside, leaned back in his chair for a little respite, and broke
the seal of his mother's letter. For a moment he thought he
saw this great, shining world dizzily drifting away from him;
he involuntarily reached out his hand and caught at nothing;
there was nothing left to catch hold of—aching, empty darkness,
that was all! He might not be Luther Brisbane, and
that fair writing before him might not be a prize essay: it was
nonsense—nothing: himself was nothing for all he knew.
With one hand he swept letters and papers together, locked them
in the desk and walked out, perhaps to see if the world were
really gone, and himself and his little dusty room all that were
left.
Luther did not know—none of us know—what a great hope
cold it is, and how heavy it is, and that we have nothing to do
but to bury it, do we, or can we know.
He learned then how much all his future life had been
colored by the dream of his love; he saw for what all his strife
had been; now there was nothing for which to strive. Notwithstanding
the estrangement, he had never thought of home
disconnected from Myrie; she was not there, and his mother
said she rejoiced while she mourned—rejoiced that Myrie was
so happily mated, and living so near, and yet sad for the breaking
up of the different future she had planned for her. She did
not say what that future was. Luther's own heart told him
what it was. “I cannot be sad,” the letter concluded,
“when I see our darling the crowning beauty of her beautiful
home.”
Here, then, was something to catch hold of. When Luther
re-read the letter, he lingered a long time upon those closing
words. “So, then,” thought he, “Myrie is happy; I wonder
if it will not send a shadow across her threshold when she hears
of what honors I am come to,” and he carefully adjusted the
papers containing what was to be the prize essay. “And this
is the strength of woman's attachment, is it?” he went on;
“they are all artful and fickle alike—not worth regretting—in
fact, I consider myself a fortunate man.”
And as the disappointed student mused, he tore his mother's
letter into little slips and scattered it to the winds, saying, “so
perish my boyish fancy, and now for a career of ambition, of
manly effort—now for a life that is a life;” and he concluded
with a flat contradiction of all he had said by exclaiming, “I'll
see if she can forget me! I'll be a man yet, she might have
that I am sufficient to myself! Men shall not think of naming
me in the same breath—not in the same day—with Charley
Robinson.”
So Luther resumed his pen, and a vehement and nervous
energy mortised the words one to another, as all his artistic
ability could not previously have done.
If we could see the influences that sometimes work out fine
results, we should be sadly taken aback. It is not best, perhaps,
to inquire too far, but to enjoy the shadow without
having first pryed into the tree's heart, to see if that be sound.
The blackest cloud gives out the brightest lightning; the grass
grows greenest and highest where the carcass lay. The thought
of the applause of men may have mingled with the most beautiful
charities, and stimulated the missionary to do his work, the
martyr to do his.
Certain it is, Luther Brisbane made a fine speech on the
sufficiency of the mind to itself, showing very clearly, and to
the satisfaction of most who heard him, that the bitterest
experiences and sharpest disappointments of life are but the
steps by which it goes up and on—the breaking of the heart's
idol but the breaking of a child's toy—suffering, all privation, of
whatever sort, but the process of education towards higher and
wider knowledge.
Many faint-hearted striplings went home that day, built up
in hope and encouraged in faith; with cheeks glowing, and
eyes resting on some bright Eden in the future, between which
and themselves they were determined, just then, nothing should
intervene.
Luther, meantime, victor where all were honored, with congratulations
shining on him from his parents, shut himself away from
all who sought his company, buried his face in his pillow, and—
shall I say to the honor or the shame of manhood?—wet it
with his tears. On the whole, I think it were better said, to
manhood's honor, he wept; for it is the weaknesses of our
fellows more than their strength that endears them to us; we
love those who need our help more than those who need no
support.
Myrie sat at the window of her pretty cottage, glancing from
her sewing work now and then down the walk; it was time
for Charley to come home from the village. She had not
waited long (for Charley was a good husband, and never
kept her waiting long) when she heard his quick step
coming.
“I have kept you waiting, Myrie,” he said, shaking back his
curly hair; “but never mind, I have brought you something
that will more than pay you. I waited for the mail, and here
is Luther Brisbane's prize-essay.”
He threw it in her lap, and went on: “Put down your work,
my dear, and read it; everybody is praising Luther, and I
almost feared to bring you this, for it throws me all in the
shadow; indeed, Myrie, I don't know how it was you ever saw
anything in me to admire!” He spoke lightly, but the moisture
came to his eyes, and affirmed that he was not idly depreciating
himself.
“O Charley,” said Myrie, putting the grand essay aside, and
her arm about his neck, “I should love you for your generosity,
if you had not one of your other thousand good and admirable
qualities.” After a moment she added, “Luther is not great
go water the flowers while the tea is making.”
And in their cheerful and healthiful occupation they presently
forgot all about Luther Brisbane; and when, the following
evening, Charley read the prize-essay aloud, Myrie said she had
not thought of it since he brought it home.
If Luther could have heard her say so, he would have taken
another upward step, perhaps, in his long and bright progress.
When Mrs. Brisbane came to drink tea with Myrie she said
she had hoped to bring Luther with her, but that he had been
complaining all the day of headache, and did not look a bit
well, poor boy—and besides, he had taken a long walk in the
morning, and felt quite overcome. Had he seen Myrie's white
curtains gleaming through the roses, and heard the music of
her voice as she called across the hill to the good and loving
Charley? Perhaps so.
The next day—not when Charley saw her, however—Myrie
gathered the prettiest bunch of flowers she could cull from all
her choice collection, and sent it to the indisposed Luther.
Was it in the hope they would wake “disagreeable associations?”
or was it to show him that she had so far outgrown her
childish fancy as to regard him only as a sick neighbor, whom
she would fain do kindly by?
Why should we pry into what it does not concern us to
know? Let us for once leave vulgar curiosity, and receive
simply that “Mrs. Robinson sends Mr. Brisbane some flowers,
with her very kind regards.” So the errand-boy said, and that
is all we have to do with it. Daily, Luther made long walks
about the neighborhood, and on each return his mother inquired
whether he had been to see Myrie; and again and
walk had been in a different direction; and perhaps these
answers were all made in good faith—at any rate, it does not
concern us to know.
His stay at home was brief, and his visit confined chiefly to
his parents, avoiding all society in as far as was possible. The
momentary enthusiasm created by his prize-essay went down
wonderfully during that brief visit. He was grown so unsocial,
the villagers said—too proud to recognize them any more.
What else could they infer, seeing not the heart of the young
man, and how indifferent it was become to all things.
One young lady of the village, who had admiringly read the
essay half a dozen times, growing enthusiastic at each reading,
and essaying her own powers on some too ambitious theme—
which, alas! only showed how insufficient, as yet, her mind was
for her task—resolved that Luther should be brought within
the magic circle of female influence; and, after a great deal of
coaxing of the old folks, leave for a little merry-making was
obtained. But vain are all human calculations, as the ambitious
young woman found; for after all the preparation, and all the
expectation, there came at the latest hour, and when hope was
weary with standing tiptoe—not Luther, but a message from
his mother, saying that increasing debility had hurried his
departure beyond his design. She was only comforted for his
absence—for he was gone, perhaps, for years—in the hope of
his restoration to health.
Poor young man! said one and another; and while they
talked of him other young men came, and thought turned back
into light and lively channels, and Luther Brisbane was forgotten.
He might have left deeper impressions if he had chosen
valued; and nothing would so surely have kept him away from
the little festival as the knowledge that he was anxiously
expected there. The hearts of the best of us are sadly perverse,
I am afraid.
December was come, the seventh one since Myrie was married,
and far out over the sunset-snow gleamed the bright,
warm light through her windows. The maid was busy preparing
the tea-table, stopping now and then to give the cradle a
tip, or to slap together her strong brown hands in the face of
the baby, that was old enough now to sit up and look about and
smile—and she did look about almost constantly, seemingly to
be all the time wondering what manner of world she was come
into. Her brown eyes were browner than her mother's, as it
were with melancholy shadows; and her hair, thick and dark,
hung a hand's breadth over her neck, or shoulders rather, for
it was not much of a neck that little Lucy had. She sat up in
the cradle, not looking in the fire, as she often did, but keeping
her eyes steadily towards the door, and her white fingers working
one with another, as if she were anxiously looking for her
father to come. The maid might slap her hands merrily as she
would, pull her hair, or shake the cradle like a playful storm,
the child would not laugh, scarcely smile; nor could any
device turn her for more than a moment from her watching at
the door. Once or twice, when the wind rattled the shutters,
and drifted from the cave a light cloud of snow, a shudder
passed over her, and she looked beseechingly at her mother,
who, talking through her to the maid, kept watch beside her.
Warm and bright, and cheerful the room was, and nothing was
wanting to make it a perfect picture of a happy home but the
often down the snow-path, and seeing him not, stitched on with
nervous energy, and looked again, and stitched again faster
than before.
Shadows crept over the snow where the sunshine had been,
and the wind calmed itself down into keen and biting stillness
—deeper grew the shadows, and deeper, and it was night.
The sewing had been changed to the book, and the book had
been opened and closed a dozen times, and was at last laid on
the shelf; and stooping over the cradle, the young mother,
perhaps to strengthen herself, told the baby again and again
that father was coming—now he was almost come to Mr.
Brisbane's house, and now he was past it—now he was on such
a hill, and now riding beneath such a tree—now just in sight
and now coming up the path; and so she would lift the baby
up to see him; but no, he was not there—all was still and cold,
and white. Presently there was a stamping at the door.
Myrie hurried to open it, and the baby reached out its hands;
but it was not the husband and father. Neighbor Brisbane
was come to talk with him about some proposed improvement
in the village—that was all: for Charles Robinson was looked
upon as the most public-spirited and liberal of the people
among whom he lived; and it was largely owing to his generous
encouragement and aid that the new school-house was
built, and the meeting-house, and the Lyceum-hall, and the
turnpike-road; in fact, and in short, that the village was the
pretty, and populous and thrifty village it was. Mr. Brisbane
said he had heard of the failure of a great bank in town, and
he feared it was business connected with that which kept
Charley so late. Any excuse was a relief to Myrie, and she felt
though every cent were gone with the bank. Mr. Brisbane
said, too, that it was reported that Peter Mendenhall had run
away, but that he hoped it was not true. Myrie said she
hoped not; but just then she cared very little whether or not
Peter Mendenhall had run away with the thousand dollars
Charley had lent him. Once or twice neighbor Brisbane arose
to go; but Myrie said so earnestly, “Won't you wait a little
longer? I am sure he will come”—that he stayed more for her
sake than to talk with Charley.
At last they sat by the fire very still, for it is hard for one
to keep up talk where there are two, and for her life Myrie
could not say anything but, “Why doesn't Charley come?
Oh! why doesn't he come?”
The baby was wide awake, quietly watching the door, when
the gate-latch made a joyful sound; then came a quick step,
the door opened, and a stranger stood before them; his clothes
frozen stiff about him, and his words frozen too. He was come
to tell the saddest news that ever can be told. Charley was
dead. When he had ended the story the baby left its watching
towards the door, and with lips curling and trembling with the
bitter cry it did not make aloud, hid its face in the cradle-pillow
and would not be comforted.
Poor Charley! he had gone bravely, generously—just as he
had lived.
As he was riding homeward, he saw a boy who was skating
on the ice suddenly slip under, and springing to the ground, he
plunged in, brought him up, bore him almost ashore, and with
the effort that lodged him on safe ground, slipped himself, went
down under, and was lost!
Poor, poor Charley!
“When the deep gives up its dead you will see him,” said
good Mr. Brisbane, and he laid his trembling hands on Myrie's
head, stricken down with that sorrow which will not know
hope; for across the valley of the shadow of death hope travels
slowly.
Misfortune comes not singly, it is often said, and I think
there is truth in the saying. So it is with good fortune—an
agreeable thing rarely comes to us isolated; there is, perhaps,
attractive power in a good thing for its kind, and in a bad
thing for its kind, and so it comes that if we slip, our neighbor
gives us a push; and “if we have a sheep and a cow, everybody
gives us good-morrow.”
Mr. Brisbane's fears were not without foundation; it was
true that Peter Mendenhall had run away, and that the bank
where Charley Robinson had put his money for safe keeping
(and so done what everybody said was a very wise thing in
Charley Robinson) was gone to ruin, and Mrs. Robinson saw herself
a widow, with poverty, if not actually at the door, coming
thither very fast. She knew nothing about self-reliance, and it
is not easy to stretch one's self up to an equality with fate,
especially when there is a great sorrow dragging us down.
We are more likely to sit and nurse our woes, most of us, till
necessity says, “arise or perish,” than to gather up our courage
and press on alone. So sat poor Myrie, a long, long
time.
The ring which Luther had given her on the day of betrothal
she had always worn on the finger with the wedding ring; but
now, as if it were a wrong to poor Charley, she took it off, and
wore only the wedding-ring. Every book he had liked was
tended better than the rest, and her best comfort was in telling
the little Lucy what a good father she had had, and how many
things he would have done for her if he had lived, and in asking
her over and over if she remembered how he looked, or any
word he had ever said to her; and whether it were from
hearing it so often, I know not, but the child learned to say
father long before she could say mother.
When the little girl could run about, she looked like another
Myrie. Her faded dresses and bare feet looked like hers too;
her brown eyes only had more sadness and less sparkle than
her mother's had at the same time of life.
We are soon forgotten when we cease to minister to the
happiness of others, and a great deal of beauty is reflected in
the face sometimes from a costly dress; certain it is, Myrie
was never praised any more except for her nice needle-work,
which was more in demand than her company, when the table
that used to be so bountifully spread was left against the wall,
and nothing more than bread and butter on it.
The pretty cottage and the grounds went out of repair, and
one room was let, and then another, till finally there was but
one poor chamber left for Myrie and her little girl.
And the village grew and flourished, and children grew to
“fair women and brave men.” Lucy grew with the rest in
beauty as well as height, but nobody thought of calling Lucy
beautiful. Laurie Morton, who had a rough red face and an
impudent stare, was thought to be a great beauty; everybody
saw her big costly ear-rings, and nobody saw her big ugly ears;
her father was a very rich man, and of course Laurie's beauty
could not be questioned.
Annie Clough, too, a white-haired pale-faced, slim young
woman, with no particular expression in her grey eyes, but
with a great deal of money prospectively in her purse, was
thought to be of quite an elegant order of beauty, and a dozen
children of the town were named Annie Clough, and lifted up
to kiss the pale cheek of the young woman as often as possible.
But Lucy Robinson had no namesakes, and only the winds
kissed her fair cheeks. She was only the daughter of a widow,
and a seamstress.
In the free-school and the Sunday-school she could say as
good lessons as any of them; but it happened she never won the
first prize, nor the second. Her quiet manner, and wealth of
hair and soft and wondrous eyes, were not so striking to the
vulgar gaze as the broad bright stripes of Laurie Morton's
dresses, or the dead pallor of Annie Clough.
The day Lucy was fifteen years old, she came home from
school with her eyes more filled with shadows than their wont,
and, turning her face from her mother, bent low over her open
book: Bending at her weary task sat the mother, as she had
sat all day long. At length, drawing a long breath of relief,
and breaking her thread, she said, “What is the matter, my
child?”
Lucy replied that she had studied hard that day and knew
her lessons quite perfectly, and yet had received more bad
marks than good ones.
“Well, never mind,” said the mother; “but tie on your
bonnet and carry home this bundle of work, for you know how
badly the money is needed—indeed, we have no tea nor bread
to-night.”
It was a pretty collar for Annie Clough, and a gay skirt
half smiling and half crying, Lucy took the parcel and did as
she was directed; but when she returned, half an hour later,
the smile was wholly gone—she was crying outright. Mrs.
Morton had said nothing about paying for the work, and Miss
Clough was not at home. “I met her, though,” said Lucy,
“walking with Laurie Morton, and neither of them noticed me
at all.” Mother and daughter went supperless to bed that night,
and sad enough.
A night or two after this, Lucy brought home most of her
books—there would not be any school the next day—there
would be a great meeting of citizens in the afternoon, and a
dinner, in honor of some distinguished gentleman and traveller
who had just arrived. “Mrs. Morton, don't you think,” continued
Lucy, “is to give a fine ball; and that is what you
made the lace capes and things for, mother.”
After a moment she added, pettishly, “Well, they may have
their fine ball and their fine traveller too; don't you say so,
mother?”
“Certainly, my child,” replied Mrs. Robinson—and directly
she asked Lucy if she knew who it was that was come? “You
read so much, you perhaps know something of him,” she said.
Lucy tossed back her curls, quite contrary to her usual
method of softly brushing them away, and replied that she
never heard of him in her life, and that his name was Brisby,
she believed. The quickened beating of Mrs. Robinson's heart
caused the work to drop from her hands, and a bright, warm
blush clouded the settled pallor of her cheek. She turned away,
seeming to search for her lost needle, and asked Lucy again
what she said the stranger's name was.
“Bushby,” answered the girl, “I did not call it right
before, did I?”
Mrs. Robinson drew a long sigh—half of regret and half of
relief, and presently putting down her work, unlocked a drawer,
opened a miniature case, kissed the poor semblance of what
was once Charley, and when she returned to her seat the quiet
and the customary paleness were back again. But she did not
work any more for a long while, and sat silent, rocking to and
fro till the shadows had deepened into night, and till long after
that.
Lucy brought her stool to her mother's feet presently, leaned
her cheek on her knee, and with her long hair dropping down
her neck and shoulder, and almost to the floor, fell asleep, quite
unconscious of the strange tumult her careless words had awakened
and stilled.
While they sat so, mother and child, in their dark little
room, Mrs. Morton's fine house was full of lights and merriment.
Laurie choked on the tea, and was obliged to leave the table
in convulsions of laughter. “Dear Annie Clough,” she exclaimed
at length, “did you ever hear anything so preposterous?”
But that white little person had turned aside, and
was concluding her laughter with a violent cough. Still holding
both her sides, Laurie resumed her seat, and as soon as she
could calm herself sufficiently, said, “Seriously, mother, it is
not possible you thought of asking old widow Robinson and her
girl; a pretty figure they would make at our ball, wouldn't
they. Why the widow is forty years old, ain't she?”
“No, my dear; not much more than thirty,” answered Mrs.
Morton, who was really a good and kind-hearted woman; and
she added, “when you young girls are thirty you will find your
besides, Mrs. Robinson and Mr. Brisbane were thought to be
lovers once.”
“Oh mother!” cried Laurie, and “Oh, Mrs. Morton,!” cried
Annie; “it is not possible!”
“Why, Mr. Brisbane is just in his prime, young enough for
either of us, and Mrs. Robinson is an old woman.”
Mrs. Morton repeated again that Mrs. Robinson could not be
much beyond thirty, and going back to the time Lucy was born
guessed at how old Myrie was then, and so guessed again at
what Lucy's age must then be, and assured the laughing young
ladies that Myrie Robinson could not be more than thirty-three.
“At any rate,” said Laurie, “it would be an absurdity to
ask her to our house to meet Mr. Brisbane. Why, he is the
handsomest man I ever saw, and rich too, it is said, and she a
poor old sewing woman—ridiculous!”
Mrs. Morton was half ashamed of her suggestion, and said
she had not really thought of inviting Mrs. Robinson; and
to smoothe over, in some sort, the terrible absurdity of the
thing, she related to the young ladies what she knew, and the
much more she had heard, respecting the relations existing long
ago between the handsome Mr. Brisbane and the widow.
They, however, could not believe there had ever been any
serious attachment between them; they knew, indeed, there
could have been none on Mr. Brisbane's part. In short, they
concluded the girl Myrie, as any other presuming dependent
might foolishly do, had fallen in love with the elegant student,
and probably married at last to cover the mortification of defeat.
Mrs. Morton said it was not unlikely, but she said it with an
and when she arose from her nicely spread tea-table, she said,
with some heartiness, she would go and see Myrie Robinson
before a week, and her manner seemed to say, “Laugh as you
will you cannot keep me from doing that.”
Lively and busy times there were in the village, but Mrs.
Robinson's little room was as still and as lonesome as usual.
Lucy selected the poems in her school-books, and read them to
her mother again and again; sometimes she even ventured upon
a song, but it generally ended in a sigh, for poor Lucy had no
mates and no joys but her duties, and such reflective silences
as were little saited to her years.
It was a sunshiny day of about the middle of August, that
they saw, mother and child, through the dusty vines at the
window, the many people hurrying to the grand reception, for
which the school had given its recess, and for which so many
preparations had been making the week past; they saw as if
they saw not, for it was not for them, poor and unmirthful, to
have to do with festivals.
“Dear mother,” spoke Lucy at last, “don't sew any more
to-day;” and with gentle force she took the work from her
weary hands and folded it away. “No, no, my child,” said the
mother; “what will become of us if I leave off working?”
Lucy opened the hymn-book, one of the few books they had,
and read:
But trust him for his grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.”
light in her face, and suffered the work to be laid away.
“Dear good mother?” exclaimed the happy child, and pulling
down her long hair, she combed and curled it as she
saw it in the picture that was laid away. There was a gentle
protest against the curls, but the mother yielded in that too,
though when they were made she pushed them back half carelessly
and half conscientiously, for she had worn her hair all put
plainly away since Charley died. Lucy declared that her
mother had actually added to the beautiful effect of the curls,
and in her strangely playful and sunny mood brought forth
from the drawer the white dress she so liked to see her mother
wear. “Really,” she said, standing apart and looking at her in
loving admiration when she was dressed, “nobody would believe
you were my mother, you look so young, and oh, so pretty!”
and, indeed, they did look more like sisters than like mother
and child. She tied on her hood directly, and, concealing a
small basket under her apron, went out, saying only that she
would be back in an hour or two. It was her habit to wander
often about the woods and fields; but it was not simply her
own pleasure she was seeking that day. She saw everybody
having a holiday, and, after her own fashion, she was trying to
make one too, and the concealed basket she hoped to bring
home full of berries—an addition to the supper which would
happily surprise her mother; but little did she then dream of all
the happy surprise she was preparing for her. She knew well
where the vines were, and that the berries were ripe to blackness;
but she turned her feet away from them, and hurried
towards Mr. Brisbane's house, to ask the liberty which she knew
would be cordially accorded. She did not see the old family
carriage moving up the road, and Mrs. Brisbane, in her best
black silk dress, seated so comfortably and so respectably
were, and of the nice supper they would have at home, and
lightly crossing the porch, tapped on the door of the parlor,
which stood ajar. “I have come to ask you, Mr. Brisbane,”
she said, stepping within the room, “if I might go to the hedge
for berries.”
Luther Brisbane—for it was he who was reading by the window—dropped
the paper he held, and in his bewilderment said
nothing.
Astonished at his silence, Lucy, rubbing her sunblinded eyes,
drew nearer, saying, “Dear father (for she often called Mr.
Brisbane so), what is the matter?”
“My pretty child,” he said, in tones tremulous with emotion,
“you have mistaken me, I fear. I have no right to the name
you call me.” Blushing and ashamed, Lucy explained and
apologized as well as she could, and having obtained leave to
pick the berries, hurried away, scarcely in her confusion, having
noticed the many questions the stranger asked in reference
to her home and her mother. She reached the hedge and filled
her basket before she was aware, so full of thoughts was her
heart, and hastened home to relate her little adventure.
“Yes, yes,” said Mrs. Robinson, “he came directly here and
told me all about it; he is an old friend of your mother's; we
were playmates you-know;” and she added, after a moment,
that he had partly engaged to come back and drink tea with
them; but she hardly thought he would do so, he would receive
so many better invitations. However, the supper was arranged
for three, and not in vain; that little room, with its loved
inhabitants, was to Luther the brightest spot he had ever
found.
Mrs. Morton's guests waited wearily for the most honored
guest of all. At last he came, so late as to make necessary an
apology. Laurie's bright flounces seemed to drop suddenly
from their wide flaunting, and Miss Clough's white cheek grew
still whiter, if possible, when they knew it was Mrs. Robinson
who had come between them and their crowning pleasure.
“I told you so, young ladies,” exclaimed Mrs. Morton, lifting
one finger in sly exultation; but Laurie stoutly maintained that
she was the first to suggest the propriety of inviting Mrs.
Robinson, and Annie Clough was quite sure she had seconded
the proposal.
It was December again, the snow lay white and cold over all
the ground; the wind blew roughly, now and then sending the
flame down the chimney, and almost to the feet of Myrie and
Luther, for we may call them so again, rattling the shutters,
and sometimes driving quite through the broken pane. Myrie's
hands were clasped together, and her eyes rested on the ground;
but Luther's eyes were resting on her lovingly, tenderly, and
his hands moving uneasily, as if they sought something. At
length she raised her eyes and asked Luther—for woman is apt
to be impatient of such silences—whether it was the rough
night he was thinking of?
“Myrie,” said he, taking both her little hands in his, clasped
together as they were, “do you remember once when I said—
no matter what I said—something that was rash, boyish,
foolish—wicked, I am afraid—and you gave me twenty years
to frame an apology?”
The trembling of Myrie's hands showed that she remembered,
but she said nothing, and he went on: “All those twenty
years I have tried to frame that apology, and now I have only
said there can be no apology made. Can you forgive me?”
The tears were in Myrie's eyes; the deep humility of the strong,
proud man had touched her heart, and, in a voice sweet and
unsteady, she answered she had nothing to forgive, just as she
would have answered twenty years before if he could only have
bent his stubborn will to speak those simple words. How it
ended the reader sees well enough, and I will only add that
Lucy stammered and blushed anew when, an hour after the
apology, Mr. Brisbane awoke her with a kiss—for with cheek
resting on her arm she had been asleep all the evening—awoke
her, and asking if she remembered calling him father by mistake
when they first met, said that for the future it would be a
mistake if she called him anything else, and that he hoped to
merit at least some part of the affection and respect belonging
to that name.
The ring of betrothal took its old place again, but the wedding-ring—Charley's,
ring was never removed. Happy as mortals
may expect to be, their lives glided on; but in spite of all the
brightness around her, in spite of all efforts to the contrary, some
days were full of clouds and shadows to Myrie, and at such times
she was sure to say Charley instead of Luther—he had spoken
no word to her that it was not sweet to remember, and held to
the last the purest place in her heart—let us not be curious to
know whether the deepest or not, or if the glitter of gratified
ambition and pride did not dissolve itself into a vain and foolish
thing when set against the memory of a heartfelt smile. Of
course Mrs. Brisbane became the pet and admiration of the
people among whom she lived, especially among those who had
been least conscious of her existence previously to her second
she had learned to pause and fear; and doubtless it was well, else
might her heart have been made vain by the constant adulation,
and her life have been rather a strife to be great than good.
As it was, she never forgot the instability of earthly things, or
ceased from laying up treasures were moth and rust doth not
corrupt. So we leave her with her wealth; her husband,
hospitable and stately; her daughter, beautiful and dewy as a
rose-bud; her sacred memory, and her heavenly hope.
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