17. CHAPTER XVII.
BY THE FIRESIDE.
The autumn passed with all its joyful splendor and
its dreamy beauty; its singing birds, and many-colored
forests, and its tender flowers glittering like jewels in the
crevices between mossy rocks, and on the sunny hillsides.
The winter wind had come; and it sighed mournfully
through the tall bare trees which bent before it now—so
stormy was it—but then sprang up again like giants, and
catching it in their gaunt hands, made it sue loud for
mercy. Ah! very unlike those soft breezes, were these
stormy winter blasts, which had dispelled with a single
breath, the tender haze of autumn from the woods and
hills. They rolled like thunder through the lofty pines,
or like a great organ peal—so “musical” was this “discord;”
so “sweet” this “thunder” of the winter wind.
Then the sky became obscured as if some enormous
flock of wild pigeons, such as once were wont to pass
here in Virginia, were flying over the mountain land;
then one morning when the mountaineers arose, they saw
pass by their windows myriads of downy flakes, which
any one of imaginative temperament might have said,
were in truth the feathers, soft and very white, of those
flying pigeon-nations, scattered from those mid-air-flying-breasts,
by the great stormy artillery of Heaven.
The autumn was, thus, dead; wild geese no longer were
seen flying southward far up in the clouds, from which
their faint cry floats so clearly to the ear; the carol of
the robin was no longer heard; the flowers had perished,
even the golden-rod, last lingerer on the hille;—in one
word, winter had set in in earnest, there in the mountain-land,
and one of those good, honest, old-time snows,
which scorned to lie less than a foot or two in depth, now
wrapped the whole landscape in its bridal vail.
In the houses, diligent preparation had been made to
meet the enemy; and every where he was routed by blazing
wood fires, and by furs such as fair ladies wrap themselves
in, when the merry sleigh-bells tinkle at the door.
But more than all did the cold dismal winter night yield
up its power for evil before the merry laughter of the
happy-hearted children in the long evenings playing their
thousand games—as “Blind man's buff,” “'Tis oats,
peas, beans, and barley grow,” and many others—by the
bright, roaring fire. At the houses where these scenes
were enacted, this merry laughter heard, the grim old
Winter dared not show his nose, but peeping through the
window furtively, passed on slowly, otherwhither!
We have thought it unnecessary to chronicle all the
sayings and doings of the personages of this brief history;
since the few scenes we have attempted to trace, have
we hope, served to indicate sufficiently for the purposes
of the narrative up to the present moment, the characters
and surroundings of those personages.
Doctor Courtlandt had become now quite a regular
visitor at the Glades, and indeed Miss Emberton had
found the little whist parties, which were gotten up by
him for her amusement, a very acceptable substitute for
the usual listless “reading aloud” of her brother, in the
long winter evenings. Mr. Robert Emberton cherished
for his sister a very devoted affection, but reading he considered
a great bore—much more, reading aloud. Doctor
Courtlandt's whist arrangement, therefore, met with the
hearty approbation of both the brother and sister; and
Mr. Emberton's opinion of the elegant traveled gentleman,
spurred by self-interest, vastly increased. He had, however,
deferred in all things to Doctor Courtlandt, from the
first moment of their acquaintance. M. Pantoufle even,
now domiciled at the Glades, gained a new interest from
his former acquaintance with such a man.
At the Parsonage, Mr. Robert Emberton and Mr. Max
Courtlandt were very constant visitors. The Comedy of
Errors had been repeated so often, that it might have
heen justly considered a great favorite with the actors
and the audience—on this occasion, one and the same.
The young men often drove over to ride the ladies out in
their sleighs; and this tacit rivalry had in a great degree
served to remove Mr. Emberton's listlessness, and Max's
melancholy.
Thus more than a month had passed rapidly, and Christmas
began to hint of its approach, in the diligent attention
paid by Mrs. Courtlandt to her larder, in the busy employment
of the young girls on their various “Christmas
gifts” to be—but more than all in the joyful anticipation
plain in every eye.
The sunshine sparkling on the snow, was not half as
brilliant as those joyful eyes.
