University of Virginia Library

31. CHAPTER XXXI.

`You have seen her!' was Thornton's exclamation, when
Mr. Raynor entered his room about eight o'clock that
evening.

`Certainly—for an hour.'

`And what did she say? is she well?'

`She said she was well.'

`Does she want to see me?' was Thornton's next
question, but put in a different tone.

`You do not deserve to see her, for even asking,' said
his friend. `How are you? let me feel your hand.'

`O I am well enough,' said Thornton, throwing himself
into the other corner of his easy-chair—`or should be, if my
head would stop turning round. But after all, Henry, what
makes you say that? you know as well as I do that I don't
deserve to have her care whether I am alive or dead.'

`Then go further back, and say that you do not deserve
to have such a sister. Never ask me whether Rosalie is
herself still. What is the matter with your head?'

`Turns round, that's all,' said Thornton. `Waltzes—
seeing my feet have not the power. How cool your hand
is! a very quaker touch, and my head stops waltzing.'

`What machinery set it agoing?'

`I dont know—' said Thornton with another fling. `Or
at least it is not worth while to inquire.'

`Very worth while, for you. In the mean time sit still.
I have quaker prejudices against a general waltz.'

`Well you keep your hand still then,' said Thornton
laughing. `Now tell me every word that Rosalie said.
And in the first place, Sir Henry, I think quite as highly of
her as you do.'

`I should be glad to think so,' said Mr. Raynor quietly.

`Well think so then!' said Thornton with an impatient
gesture. `You are not obliged to admire her any more
than I do, at all events. Was her conversation so sweet
and pleasant that you have scruples about repeating it?'

`On the contrary the words spoken were mostly my own,
and Rosalie said but little.'

`Rosalie again!' said Thornton. `Why will you always
call her so?'

`Merely because it suits me.'

`But other people do not.'

`Other people have their way and I have mine.'

You have it in most things, to do you justice,' said
Thornton. `Well will it suit you to tell me what she did
say?'

`She asked how you were, and why she had not been
sent for; and wished very much to come directly to you
to-night.'

`The gypsey!' said Thornton looking pleased. `Well
why didn't she?'

`Because my wish was different.'

`What do you mean by that, Mr. Raynor? said Thornton
facing round upon him.

`The simple truth.'

`Very peculiar truth to my ears,' said Thornton. `What
had you to say about it?'

`I did say that I should not bring her.'

`And she submitted?'

`Certainly,—she could not well come alone.'

Thornton kicked off his slipper to the furthest corner of
the room—then subsided.

`You are so excessively cool!' he said—`and slippery
to match. Do you never congeal in the course of a conversation?'

`Not often,' said Mr. Raynor—

`What else was said?' inquired Thornton abruptly.

`I gave your sister a very particular account of your
weeks of illness, the beginning thereof, and the state in which
they had left you: told her that probably you would be
with her to-morrow, and that she need feel neither sorrow
nor anxiety about your health.'

`Hum—' said Thornton. `What else?'

`That is the substance of what was said about you.'

`What about anything else?'

`Nothing that I think it worth while to repeat.'

`But I think it worth while that you should,' said
Thornton. `And I think I have a right to know all that
is said to my sister by anybody, or by her to anybody.'

`I think differently.'

`I don't care what you think,' said Thornton starting up
from his chair.

`And I care what you do,' said Mr. Raynor, with
strong though gentle hands bringing him back to a resting
posture. `Sit quiet Thornton, and throw not away the
little strength you have gained.'

`Little indeed!' said Thornton bitterly, as he felt it by
no means up to the resisting point. `But you may take
your hands away—I suppose I can sit still without being
held.'

One hand still kept its guard however, but the other
laid that same cool touch on his forehead, and for a little
while there was silence. Mr. Raynor stood motionless,
and Thornton tired with the excitement into which he had
wrought himself, was nearly as still; a quick breath or two
escaping like pent up steam from time to time.

`What do you vex me for, Henry?' he said at length.

`I did not intend it.'

`But you know it always vexes me to see you so cool.'

`I may not vex myself to please you, Thornton,' said
his friend.

`And Rosalie—you know I never can bear to hear you
talk about her.'

`You insisted that I should.'

`Well but—' said Thornton,—`of course I did, but not
in that way. How did she look?'

`I fear any description I might give would be too much
in `that way,” said Mr. Raynor.

`You are certainly the most provoking man I ever had
to deal with. Did she look as well as she used to?'

`As she used to when?'

`Why always!' said Thornton.

`Her health has had several phases since I first knew
her,' said his friend gravely. `She is perhaps looking better
than she was last spring, and will I hope improve faster
now that her mind is at rest about you,—partly at rest.'

Thornton could have been vexed again, but the words
touched him on more points than one.

`Did you see Hulda?' he inquired.

`No, she was out.'

`May she always be that when I am there!' said Thornton,
his illhumour rushing off into that channel. `When one
cannot walk away from a disturbance, one is glad to have it
save one the trouble.'

`I see you are not cured yet, Thornton,' Mr. Raynor
said.

`What do you mean by not cured?' said Thornton kicking
off his other slipper.

`I did hope that this fever might bear off some other
maladies. Meanwhile if you will put on these slippers which
stand by your chair, it may be the better for your bodily
health.'

`I am not apt to take cold in my feet,' said Thornton,
thrusting his toes into the slippers—from which however
the whole foot gradually worked in. `What particular maladies
do you suppose me afflicted with?'

`Some much akin to that which befell Christiana's son
in the Pilgrim's Progress, when he eat of the fruit of Beelzebub's
orchard,' replied Mr. Raynor. `But he was willing
to take the cure.'

The anger which had flushed into Thornton's face at the
first words, faded away when he heard the last. And even
the show of it was hard to keep up.

`You talk knowingly of the disease, and think the cure
easy to get,' he said. `That is the way with Rosalie—and
I suppose with all paragon people.'

“`Is there no balm in Gilead?'” said Mr. Raynor's
deep grave voice; “Is there no physcian there? why then
is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?'”

Thornton could almost have put his hands over his face
and wept. For if the cause of all his impatience could have
been traced out, it would have been found not so much in

his bodily weakness as in those other ailments to which his
friend referred; or rather in his consciousness of them.
Neither his long weeks of illness nor the living presence of
his friend had lost their work; but his mind was only stirred
up and roiled—not clear nor at rest. For a half hour he
sat there, striving to control himself enough to speak without
shewing any emotion; and then it was hid but with a
poor veil of carelessness.

`If you feel obliged to stand at the back of my chair all
the time, Mr. Raynor, I shall feel obliged to go to bed.
You must be tired after your day's journey.'

`It is the best thing you can do,' said Mr. Raynor
quietly.

And Thornton went to bed, trying hard to persuade
himself that he was a very ill-used person, and by the time
he went to sleep was pretty well established in that pleasant
conviction; but when he woke up in the night, and saw his
friend still watching over him,—sometimes standing at his
side, sometimes by the light with that little Bible in his
hand which had for Thornton's eyes a strange fascination,
—he was forced to change his mind. When he awoke in
the morning Mr. Raynor sat before the fire with his head
resting on his hand, but at the first movement Thornton
made he came to him.

`You are better this morning,' Mr. Raynor said, when
he had felt Thornton's head and hand and had taken his
usual grave survey of his countenance.

Thornton looked up at him and repeated his last night's
question—

`What do you vex me for, Henry?' And for almost the
first time in his life Mr. Raynor answered him with a smile.

`Well, why do you?' said Thornton.

`Why do you vex yourself?' said Mr. Raynor, his clasp

of Thornton's hand a little closer. The feeling of last
night rose up in Thornton's eyes,—he closed them and was
silent.

`I am absolutely sorry to part with you, and to give you
up into other hands,' said Mr. Raynor—`even though those
be the best possible.'

`Part with me!' said Thornton. `That is what you
shall not do. You are going with me to White Oak?'

`No.'

`You must!'

`It is so short a journey,' said Mr. Raynor, `and you
seem so well this morning—I think you can ride there with
only Tom's attendance.'

Thornton began the business of dressing with his mind
hard at work.

`But I shall want you there,' he said.

`Not when you have seen Rosalie.'

`I wish she was anywhere else!' said Thornton, with
his usual attempt at diversion. `Such a place to go to for
three weeks!'

`Such a beautiful place.'

`The beauties of nature are not in my line,' said Thornton.

`Then you are out of your own,' said his friend.

`As how, Mr Raynor?'

`Something is wrong when the most pure and beautiful
things the world can shew give no pleasure. If sweet
music seem to make discord there must be discordant notes
within.'

Thornton finished his dressing and breakfasting in comparative
silence, and even Mr. Raynor said little, and
seemed willing to let him muse if he felt inclined. Breakfast
over, the carriage came to the door and Thornton set

forth on his short journey. For a few miles Mr. Raynor's
horse was by his side, and the rider from time to time
called his attention to some notable thing in the landscape.
But when they stopped for an hour that Thornton and the
horses might rest, Mr. Raynor ordered a fresh horse for himself
to be got ready immediately.

`Are you going no further with me?' Thornton said.

`No further. This is your road—that is mine.'

`And when am I to see you again?' said Thornton, who
looked disturbed at the prospect.

`When you come back to the city I hope,' said his
friend. `And what am I to hear from you in the mean
time?'

`O that I am as well as ever again, I presume,' said
Thornton.

`And no better?'

Thornton flushed a little, but instead of flinging away
the hand he held—as he would have done some months before—he
only swung it backwards and forwards, and was
silent.

`Are you so unwilling to take up the lightest and
sweetest service to which a man can submit himself?' said
Mr. Raynor.

`It seems so to you—' said Thornton,—`it does not to
me.'

`Nor ever will until you try it. When the doubtful
ones asked Jesus, “Master, where dwellest thou?” he
said unto them, “Come and see.” “If any man will
do his will he shall know of his doctrine,” and of his service.
Or as Rutherford says; “Come and see will teach
thee more—come nearer will say much.'”

`Well—' Thornton said in a very unsatisfied tone.

`Let it be well, dear Thornton, for more sakes than your

own.' In silence the hands were clasped and parted, and
Mr. Raynor rode away.

Thornton looked after him as long as even a dusty
trace could be seen, and then returned to the beauties of
nature with a mind very unfit for their contemplation. The
quiet depth of the blue sky disturbed him, and made his
own spirit seem dark and cloudy,—the bright sun threw
shadows upon his mind of less fair proportions than those
upon the landscape; and the sweet voice of birds and winds
and brooks was too pure, too praise-giving,—too much like
the children crying hosanna in the ears of the offended
Jews. It was an unbroken concert, but Thornton's instrument
was not in tune. Everything jarred—he shook hands
with nothing; and by turns sad or impatient he drove
wearily along, until in the afternoon light Mrs. Hopper's
gate appeared before him, and the journey was at an end.