 | CHAPTER VI. El Fureidîs |  |
6. CHAPTER VI.
The dwelling of the silk-manufacturer was an inexpensive
structure of white limestone, which, with its adjacent
offices, occupied no less than four artificial terraces, a circumstance
that imparted singular irregularity to the miniature
villa, and added not a little to its picturesque effect.
Although a favorable slope had been selected, and the
terraces were of a breadth unusual in the Lebanon, the
level surface thus afforded was inconsiderable, the platform
on which the main building rested being only about twenty
feet wide, and the embankments successively diminishing
in the direction of the valley. Inconvenient as such a
foundation might be deemed in a practical point of view,
nothing could exceed the advantages it afforded in respect
to pure air, sunshine, and mountain scenery. The long,
narrow saloon which constituted the principal apartment,
and which, enclosed on three sides only, lay open to the
prospect, presented in itself an unrivalled landscape observatory.
The little wings, including one room each, which
stretched from it at right angles, though at a less elevation,
commanded the same wide expanse of garden, vineyard,
and plain; the occupants of the kitchen and laundry were
but one degree less favored; and even the rustic stable-boy,
as he groomed his master's horse, which was lodged on
a lower terrace still, could overlook the labors of the Syrian
ploughman in the grain-fields of the distant Bekaa.
The exterior of the manufacturer's mansion, like that of
most Eastern houses, was severely simple, presenting a
bare surface of wall, nowhere more than two stories in
height, and its monotony occasionally broken by a latticed
window, introduced without the slightest regard to uniformity.
The care and taste, however, of which the building
was outwardly devoid, had been freely lavished on the
inner court-yard and its surrounding saloons and alcoves,
which, in this favored climate, constituted the reception
rooms and chosen retreats of the household during the warm
hours of the day. Here Nature and the hand of man had
been profuse in their gifts and adornments. The little
enclosure was a garden of beauty and sweetness, choicest
exotics and rarest shrubs vying with the native products of
the soil in the richness and luxuriance of their growth.
The rustic archways above the steps conducting from one
terrace to another were complete arbors of clematis and
wild woodbine, and the slender pillars supporting a light
veranda which ran around the inner wall of the dwelling
were enwreathed with the jessamine and the rose.
In the centre of the garden, embowered amid orange-trees
and oleanders, a fountain sent up its graceful jet,
lulling the ear with the continual play of its waters; birds
of every hue sported among blossoming plants, or perched
boldly on window-sills and within door-ways, now and then
telling the story of their happy, protected lives in a gay
burst of song. Add to all this the purity of the summer
air, and the mingled fragrance continually going up like incense,
and it may well be believed that this was a spot
endowed with power to charm all the senses into an Elysian
repose.
So thought Meredith, as, the noonday meal being passed,
he half reclined on the low, silken divan that stretched
and in the intervals between puffing at his perfumed narghileh
looked abroad upon the entrancing prospect, and
within upon the scene of domestic peace, of which in this
strange land he found himself a partaker.
The host and his guests had been joined at dinner by
Havilah's mother, the Mother Ianthe, as she was familiarly
termed by the primitive people of the region. She came
leaning on the arm of her daughter, and wrapped in a thick
cashmere shawl, which alone indicated the extreme delicacy
of a constitution that could not endure exposure to a breeze
so gentle as that which pervaded the apartment. One needed
to bestow but a moment's glance on the mother to see
whence the mountain girl inherited the spiritual expression
which at times imparted such holy sweetness to her face.
Nothing could exceed the elevated, the almost unearthly
sanctity which marked the countenance, the manner, and
even the voice of the slender, shadow-like woman, the
marble pallor of whose face seemed enhanced by the brilliancy
of her dark, lustrous eyes, and whose black, wavy
hair drooped over her sunken cheek as if it were a mourning
badge, a token of the decay of her early bloom. There
was no undue claim to sympathy, however, no affectation
of weakness in the gentle, hostess-like manner of the invalid,
who, although she spoke English but imperfectly,
made a successful use of her knowledge of the language in
welcoming Meredith under her roof, accompanying her
broken words with a kindness of tone and earnestness of
gesture which left little for the tongue to express.
She sat but a short time at the table, ate sparingly of the
simplest food, partook of no other beverage than the water
of her favorite spring, and soon retired, accompanied by
Havilah, leaving the gentlemen to conclude the repast at
their leisure.
They lingered awhile over the variety of choice fruits
which constituted their dessert; but the table was at length
removed, pipes were brought, and Meredith, following his
host's example, applied himself, for the first time, to the enjoyment
of the narghileh, M. Lapierre, who declined the
use of this Eastern luxury, engaging with none the less zest
in the conversation which it favored, and which now flowed
in as easy and steady a current as the light streams of
smoke which went curling upward.
The countenance of the middle-aged man of the trio
would at this moment have soothed the misanthrope, and
furnished a rebuke to the sceptic in the benevolent traits
of humanity. Men accustomed to mingle in crowded circles,
to jostle against their equals at every turn, to feel
ofttimes disgust and weariness at the daily requisitions of
social life, can form but a feeble conception of the almost
rapturous joy with which an individual to a great degree
exiled from his fellows hails the stranger, the traveller, or
the pilgrim, who becomes for the time a link between him
and the great world from which he is shut out. To the silk-manufacturer,
laboring in his little sphere, the arrival of the
Englishman, his illness, and consequent detention in El Fureidis,
so far from being matters of indifference, were subjects
of deep personal interest and excitement; and now, to see
the invalid restored, to welcome him under the hospitable
roof, to share with him in friendly converse, and glean from
his lips tidings of the civilized races which he represented,
were to the honest host all-sufficient causes of congratulation
and thanksgiving. Thus his ruddy face glowed with no
common satisfaction and pleasure, as, leaning back on his
cushioned divan, and enveloped in a thick cloud of smoke,
he discussed with Meredith various questions of European
life and politics, or, voluntarily relinquishing the field to his
and the Englishman, with that unqualified and genuine
attention observable only in the unselfish and simple-hearted.
They were no ordinary men with whom, in this remote
corner of creation, Meredith had, by a singular combination
of circumstances, been brought into familar relations.
A brief acquaintance with the venerable missionary
would have sufficed to indicate, even to the most careless
observer, that behind his present life of humble labor and
patient self-sacrifice there lay a long and varied experience,
rich in learning, research, incident, and travel, possibly in
romance, adventure, and those struggles of the heart which
not infrequently give a coloring to the after career. Whatever
might have been the outward vicissitudes of his lot,—
and his thorough and widely extended knowledge of the
world proved them to have been manifold,—whatever
might have been his inward warfare,—and the depth of his
human sympathies proclaimed it to have been keen and
strong,—this much only was known of him with certainty.
Born of French parentage, and trained in the best schools
of erudition, he had early attained such masterly scholarship
and developed such mental resources as promised that
he would one day hold a brilliant position in the learned
and scientific world. At the very point, however, when
earthly success held out its most tempting allurements, he
had, actuated by some strange and unaccountable impulse,
thrown himself into the arms of the ancient Church in whose
tenets he had been educated, and, devoting the treasures of
his intellect and the powers of his ardent nature to the service
of that religious order over whose superstition and
bigotry charity draws the veil of a loving admiration for its
self-sacrificing zeal, he had set forth to preach the cross.
We may not tell how much of human passion, of disappointed
hope, of wild desperation, mingled with diviner and
more sanctified emotions in fostering his ardor for that crusade
which commissioned him not alone as the Christian
soldier, but as the bold voyager, the undaunted adventurer,
the skilful pioneer of civilization and discovery; nor may
we tell when or how, amid what Kamtschatkan snows, or
under what African suns, the man who was wrestling for
God and truth found the first ray of peace to his own soul.
It is enough that light shone at last upon his mental vision,
that with its earliest dawn he threw off the ecclesiastical
shackles by which he had hitherto been bound, and that,
receiving the Gospel like a little child, he acknowledged
Christ as his only master, and all men as brethren. Then
it was that he turned his pilgrim feet to the sacred soil of
Palestine, chose out his little field of labor, and, under the
seal of a new commission, proclaimed a pure and simple
faith on the hill-tops and in the valleys of that goodly mountain,
Lebanon.
He was a rare and noble object, that vigorous old man.
The fire of his eagle eye, which had once glowed with all the
vehemence of an ambitious youth, was subdued, not quenched,
by the gentle influences of a holy and chastened old age.
The lofty brow, once marked by the storms of life and furrowed
by its cares, had long since been smoothed by the
gentle hand of patience, and had become the placid seat of
elevated thoughts and purposes all divine. The features,
once regular and fair, had gained in benignity what they
had lost in symmetry of outline, and, shaded as they were by
the long, white beard, reminded one of the mellow beauty of
autumn, dimly discerned amid winter's snows. His iron
frame, too, how grand and imposing it was! his step how
firm and elastic! his senses how quick and discriminating!
and exposure had but served to confirm and invigorate.
He must have been an awe-inspiring man once, before humility
cast her mantle over his earth-born pride; but now,
fear gave place to love in the presence of one whose physical
power, whose mental energy, whose intellectual greatness,
were all softened and sanctified by a childlike simplicity
of spirit.
A greater contrast, and yet a more perfect harmony, could
scarcely be conceived than were exhibited by this venerable
shephered of souls, and the active, enterprising head of temporal
labors and secular interests at El Fureidis. The one
had earned a calm repose as the meed of his life-struggle;
the other enjoyed the cheerful contentedness of a nature to
which life had scarcely been a struggle at all. The one had
fought his way through youth and manhood, to win in his
ripe old age the simple faith of a child. The other had not
reached middle life without his share of human vicissitudes;
but they left him, as they found him, always a child,—a
child in light-hearted good-humor, in ignorance of the world,
in unquestioning credulity, in all the unsophisticated qualities
of a genial, confiding disposition.
This Augustine Trefoil, the silk-manufacturer, was a happy
man. A less buoyant nature than his would have sunk beneath
half the load of misfortunes which had fallen to his
lot; but what would have been ruin to another man was
to him but the spur to fresh enterprise and renewed activity.
Born of American parents, amid the mountainous districts
of New England, he had been endowed, both by inheritance
and by early training, with a hardy constitution,
cheerful temperament, quick perceptions, and especially
that indomitable perseverance and energy which are such
were early brought into action from the circumstance
that, when Augustine was yet a boy, his father (a man of
restless spirit) obtained an Eastern consulship, took his son
abroad with him, and, dying soon after, left the youth to his
own guidance and resources. His mother and two little
sisters had been buried years before beneath the New England
sod, and the boy possessed no relatives to whom he
was in any degree responsible. His habit of life had
already rendered him a cosmopolite. Domesticated, however,
in a French household, and received, soon after his
father's death, into a French commercial establishment,
circumstances and his perfect use of the Gallic tongue
occasioned him to be so identified with France and her
interests, that his true descent was well-nigh forgotten,
and on reaching manhood he was invariably styled “Monsieur.”
It was astonishing how rapidly, despite his youth, this
Franco-American commenced mingling among men, how
quickly he contrived to form projects, plan commercial alliances,
and invest his little patrimony in speculations that
promised quick returns. It was less astonishing, all things
considered, that he should have been again and again deceived
by those whom he trusted, that his projects should,
one after another, have failed, and his capital been squandered.
But Augustine was not discouraged. New schemes arose
upon the ruins of the old; partial success at times attended
them; but for the most part they were built upon some impracticable
basis, and ended in failure. Thus years were
spent in the vain endeavor to realize the wealth which constantly
dawned before the mental vision first of the boy and
then of the man, but as constantly eluded his grasp.
Precisely at the point when his fortunes were at their
lowest ebb, his honest heart, which through many long years
had found no object on which to lavish its wealth of affection,
became fixed upon Ianthe, the beautiful daughter of a
Greek merchant, resident at Smyrna. With his usual improvidence,
he hesitated not to urge his suit, though its
object was one of a numerous and unportioned family, and
he was ignorant of his own next stepping-stone towards
wealth. Here the man of many disappointments was singularly
successful; and Ianthe, young, confiding, and warmly
reciprocating his attachment, hesitated not to unite her destiny
with his, and share his uncertain lot.
Augustine had other warrant beside that of Scripture
for believing that in Havilah “there is gold; and the gold
of that land is good.” Thither he went with his young
bride, once more to waste his energies in vain toil, and
see his airy visions gradually melt into nothingness. The
only treasure which the husband and wife brought back
from the Indian soil whence they had hoped to reap a
pleantiful harvest was an infant daughter, a pure gem
of beauty and promise. In their eyes, she was more
precious than all the silver and gold hid within the mines
of Havilah: they gratefully gave her the name of the land,
and, rejoicing in this gift of Heaven, lamented not the
lesser gifts which earth had denied them.
It was the failure in Ianthe's health which directed their
steps towards Lebanon, that favored region, the unutterable
perfection of whose climate gives promise of restoration
to the invalid who would perish beneath less gentle and
life-giving breezes. Here, attentively watching the peasants
at their toil, the ingenious and enterprising mind of
Augustine saw how easily, by the aid of modern invention
and a limited capital, machinery might be substituted for
at once on the road to fortune.
Ianthe trembled when she saw him, in pursuance of this
idea, unhesitatingly seeking loans at the hands of severe
and uncompromising usurers, laying himself under obligations
which could only be cancelled by an almost incredible
success. This time, however, his sagacity was not
at fault, and the boldness of his undertaking was justified
by the event.
It might have been that years had matured his judgment
and given stability to his plans. It might have been that the
wife, wise in counsel and taught by experience, proved an
efficient check upon his impetuosity, and that her mild persuasions
were more effective in overcoming the opposition
he met with from the ignorant peasantry, than all the influence
exercised by his own energetic proceedings.
Whichever may have been the prominent cause, or
whether it were through the combination of them all, a
hitherto unknown success attended him at every step; his
prosperity seemed secure. El Fureidis, now become his permanent
home, was rescued from poverty and degradation,
and its grateful inhabitants acknowledged the silk-manufacturer
as their benefactor, protector, and friend.
It was less than a year subsequent to Trefoil's settlement
in El Fureidis that the missionary zeal of M. Lapierre led
him to the same locality, and the labors of both had been
not a little lightened from the circumstance that henceforth
civilization and religion had gone hand in hand. The old
man and Ianthe were already one in Christ Jesus, and if M.
Trefoil himself was less bound by this tie of sympathy, he
was a no less willing co-operator with them in every scheme
of benevolence. His influence (and it was not small) had
more than once warded off the shafts which supersition had
layman had manfully stood by the pastor when opposition
had developed into persecution and threats had ripened into
danger, and the friendship which had arisen in times of
trial to both had long since been cemented and confirmed
by mutual services and association in a common cause.
Thus isolated from the world at large, breasting together
the tide of ignorance and prejudice, laboring, the one for
earthly rewards, the other for heavenly harvests, but alike
promoting human welfare, it was not strange that the individual
interests of these two men were merged in the common
good; that their differences of character and pursuit
were harmoniously blended; that the influence, the wealth,
the domestic hearth of the one were at the other's disposal;
and that the stranger from a distant land was hailed as the
welcome guest of both.
A single interview with his new friends sufficed to make
Meredith acquainted with much of what has been narrated
above; for M. Trefoil made no concealment of anything which
concerned himself, and M. Lapierre touched upon such a variety
of topics as indicated the nature and extent of his own
experiences. The conversation, which had at first been
general, became at length limited to the missionary and the
Englishman. They talked long together, with mutual and
unflagging interest. Then there was a pause. Meredith
glanced in the direction of his host, and saw that the pipe
had dropped from his mouth,—he had sunk back upon the
cushions of his divan, and was lost in a deep slumber.
“Follow his example, my son,” said M. Lapierre, rising
with a smile, and taking up his stout staff. “You will be
refreshed by an hour or two of sleep. No one will come
hither to disturb you, for I have a distant excursion to make
across the mountains, and all the household, including every
their siesta.”
The old man walked away as he finished speaking, and,
in obedience to his counsel, Meredith laid himself down and
slept,—dreamed that he was in Paradise, and awoke to believe
that his dream was true. He was alone in the open
saloon, and it was nearly sunset. Long rays of golden light
swept across the garden. The fountain was sparkling like
topaz in its beams; but the shadows of nightfall obscured
the leafy recesses, and the moisture of the evening dew
filled the air with that intoxicating sweetness never known
but in Lebanon. All was quiet; no one seemed to be stirring
within or around the house; and, almost awed by the utter
stillness, Meredith passed through the enclosure and entered
the mulberry grove. He was met by M. Trefoil, returning
from an afternoon visit to his factory.
“You have had a rest proportioned to your morning
tramp upon the mountains,” said the good-humored host,
with the cheery laugh which gave a winning expression to
his face. “Come with me now to the house-top, and tell
me if anything can be more glorious than a sunset on Lebanon.”
“You may well defy the world to produce a grander or
lovelier scene,” said Meredith, as, standing beside M. Trefoil
on the flat roof, he looked forth upon the prospect. The
sun had just reached the tops of the higher range of mountains,
which enclosed the glen like an amphitheatre, and
their bare limestone crests shone like silver crowns, while
their misty slopes reflected a brilliant orange, and the deeper
valleys and ravines glowed in a rich robing of purple light.
Here and there in the distance gleamed the white villages
which dotted the mountain-sides. Far below, in the fruitful
plain of the Bekaa, the golden wheat laughed in the western
windows and glittering spire of the little church gleamed
like “a beacon set upon a hill.” Creeping down the steep
declivities leading to the valley might be seen long lines of
sheep and goats, which the herdsmen were conducting to
their folds; peasant-women were singing as they returned
homeward with milk-pails on their heads, and the weary
husbandmen were toiling up from the plain, each driving
before him his panting oxen, which, like their masters, were
rejoicing in the day's work done. It was a beautiful scene
of rural content and peace, and Meredith and his host stood
watching it in silent satisfaction, till the darkness which so
quickly succeeds an Eastern twilight came on and wrapped
the whole land in shadow.
They then seated themselves near the parapet on which
they had been leaning, and the Englishman listened while
M. Trefoil descanted on the charms of this Syrian land,
and the varied interest which it offered to the traveller.
Meredith interrupted him once, with an involuntary
“Hark!” at the same time stretching his head forward to
listen, as the sound of a little stringed instrument reached
his ear, accompanied by a sweet, musical voice; but the
sole response which his emphatic exclamation and movement
called forth was a momentary pause, and the careless
observation, “It is only the child singing an evening hymn
to her mother;”—after which M. Trefoil continued his discourse,
quite unobservant of his auditor's abstraction, which
continued as long as the music lasted.
At nine o'clock they were joined by M. Lapierre, who
had returned from his pastoral duties; and soon after Havilah
brought coffee and biscuits, which she served gracefully
with her own hands, and then withdrew. A little later, she
once more glided up the staircase, seated herself on a low
gazelle, listened attentively to the animated conversation, in
which she took no part, her white robes (for her evening
dress was always white) glittering in the light of the now
risen moon, and her large eyes beaming with vivid intelligence
as she turned them upon each speaker in succession.
She stayed but a short time, however, then disappeared,
speechless and noiseless as she had come, and was seen no
more that night.
The little village had been wrapped in slumber several
hours when M. Lapierre made a movement to depart.
Meredith rose to accompany him, and then learned, with no
little surprise, that M. Trefoil had constituted himself his
new friend's host, not for a day only, but for the remainder
of the young man's stay in El Fureidîs; that, without even
the ceremony of asking his consent, a room had been allotted
him at the villa, his portmanteau and saddle-bags had
been transferred thither; and that any hesitation to accept
this hospitality would not only cause a serious disappointment,
but be viewed, under the circumstances, as a positive
breach of etiquette.
M. Lapierre was therefore suffered to depart alone, and,
although it would have been inconsistent with Meredith's
character not to experience a slight shade of annoyance at
this impromptu change of quarters, he was consoled by the
reflection that M. Lapierre would now be reinstalled in the
humble comforts of which, for some weeks past, his guest
had involuntarily deprived him.
| CHAPTER VI. El Fureidîs | |