University of Virginia Library

11. CHAPTER XI.

Great was the joy in the settlement at Agawam when
it became known that Holyoke had determined to unite
himself to the fortunes of the plantation, as well as to its
fairest flower.

He had only allowed himself a week for his visit, and had
made his promise to the two gentlemen who accompanied
him to return with them at the close of that period. They
had accomplished their object, in seeing the country, and
had had the good fortune to be able, during their stay, to
furnish nearly all the tables in the settlement with game
and fish. They had become tired of the sport, and were
ready to return; but Holyoke found it a more difficult task
to leave the spot associated with the objects of his love and
hope than he had anticipated, and circumstances conspired
in favor of his wishes, and kindly lengthened a communion
that had come to be inexpressibly sweet to him.

Holyoke and Mary, in their closing interviews, realized
again, in its endless repetition, that enigma of love propounded
by nearly every pair in the prospect of marriage.
He loved her no better than she loved him, and yet he
looked forward to their temporary separation with a degree
of pain of which she had no conception. His whole being
was bathed in a dream of bliss. It was a dream that enervated
him,—that undermined his strength, and sapped his
firmest and noblest purposes. It shut out the future, and
the great practical world around him. His existence became
purely emotional, and his emotions were all sublimated
by the purity and power of his passion.

He met her, at first, gaily, and with the ready gallantry
of his nature; but each succeeding day found him more
and more silent, until, at last, he would have been content
to sit speechless for hours with Mary's hand in his own, or
her head upon his shoulder. She became to him an angel,
so pure and perfect, so noble and so good, so elevated above
all earthly contaminations and associations, that he thought
of her only as an angel—a spirit of light and joy, of beauty
and goodness. She was the subject of his last thought as
he closed his eyes in sleep, and of the first that sprang into
resurrection with his waking consciousness. His whole
being was full of her. She walked in bright beatitude
through all his dreams, and shaped his thoughts to forms
of beauty and words of music. She had wrought upon
him the highest sanctification of an earthly love. A coarse
or ribald phrase, a tainted jest, or an unchaste suggestion,
as now and then one reached his ear, was pointed with a
sting of the most painful offence. Bright, beautiful dream!
Fair flower of paradise! Sweet glimpse of Eden! Ineffably
precious experience! conceived in illusion, wrought into
form by frailty, and condemned by reason, yet enthroned
as the central object in memory's gallery for ever!

Mary, who had done all her dreaming previously, had
now become intensely practical. She was rather anxious,
on the whole, to have Holyoke depart. The plans of her
life were settled, and she desired to engage in their execution.
While Holyoke delayed his departure, and controlled
her movements and occupied her time by his presence, she
could not take a step towards preparing a home for him, an
institution of which he had become entirely careless, even
to forgetfulness. The business of life had begun with her.
The garment of care was already put on, and she waited
only for her lover to leave her, to adjust and fasten it, and
in it to go about the fulfilment of her mission. Sometimes
she shocked him by some homely or excessively practical

suggestion, or rallied him upon his drowsiness, and not
unfrequently dissipated a heaven of emotion by inquiring
very tenderly whether he were sick or in pain. So that the
dearer she became to him, the more incomprehensible she
appeared, and the more she shocked him by the utterance
of common-places, and titbits of worldly wisdom and small
maxims of economy, that showed that her thoughts had,
for the time, become in a degree released from him, and
absorbed in plans for his future comfort and happiness.

Upon Holyoke love had the effect of intoxication, while
Mary felt that her spirit had been strengthened in its temper
and tone by the same power, and fitted by it, in some
reliable degree, to perform the duties and overcome the
difficulties of life. They had sat side by side, and respectively
drank strength and weakness from the same fountain.
He had grown forgetful of his manhood, his high resolutions
and his noble enterprises, wrapped in the rosy folds of a
present as delirious as it was delicious, while she, loving no
less, had grown more thoughtful, more provident, and more
womanly, in her comprehension of the duties that lay before
her, and the destiny to which she had devoted herself.

The circumstances that conspired to lengthen Holyoke's
stay in the plantation were connected with Mr. Pynchon's
departure for the Bay, in order to discharge there his duties
as a member of the Board of Assistants in the colonial
legislature. While this was the leading object of his visit,
the visit itself was an opportunity for him to carry forward
the furs that had been collected during the season; and
messages had been sent to all the Indians in the region to
bring in their stock, that all might be transported together.
Accordingly, for several days before Holyoke's departure,
Mr. Pynchon's house was the constant scene of trade, and
large quantities of peltry were accumulated. The house,
and the whole settlement, in fact, exhibited, during these
days, an appearance which now finds its only examples in

the new villages of the retiring West. Savages—men,
women, and children—came in, in throngs. The novelty
of the settlement had not yet passed away, and those who
did not come to sell came to see.

The last man who visited Mr. Pynchon, previous to his
departure, was John Woodcock. Taking him a considerable
distance aside, he said, “Square Pynchon, what did
you send that boy to work with me for?”

“To cure him of his tricks,” replied Mr. Pynchon.

“Well, I felt worse worked up 'bout that, than anything
that's happened to me in some time,” continued Woodcock,
with a mortified air, “and I wouldn't 'a stood it if it
hadn't been for your Mary.”

“I thought you would be pleased with the disposal I
made of him, and that it would be the best thing I could
do for Peter.”

“What do I want to do a good thing for Peter for—a
little scaliwag that ought to be ketched in a trap like a
musquash, and have his head stove in with a boot-heel?
Be I the jail, or the stocks, or the whippin'-post?”

“I am not responsible for your choosing to misunderstand
me, Woodcock; and if you do not wish to have the
boy work for you, I will assign him to some one else, or
change his punishment to whipping,” responded Mr. Pynchon.

“I guess I understand you, Square,” said Woodcock.
“I don't s'pose you meant to say it in so many words that
John Woodcock's a hard nut, and'll put that boy through
purgatory, but that's what it amounts to. Now I haint
any notion of givin' the boy up, but I wanted to show you
that I've got feelin's, and can read most kinds of writin'.”

“Well, John, you're a strange man. It is very hard
suiting you, and it is very hard for you to suit us. By the
way, have you satisfied Mr. Moxon's claim for damages
yet?”

“No, Square, you know I hav'n't, you know I never will.”

“Very well, you must not complain at the consequences.
You know that I feel friendly towards you, and you know
that the law will be executed in this plantation, if there are
men enough here to execute it.”

“There ain't enough men here to execute that thing on
me,” replied Woodcock, with a nod of decision at every
second word, and a strong scowl of contempt.

“Go your way, Woodcock—you seem determined to
make trouble for yourself and everybody else.” Thus saying,
Mr. Pynchon bade him good-bye, and entered the house to
take leave of his family.

Already the weaker animals, loaded down with their
packs, were filing along the street, and turning into the
Bay Path, to get a start of those possessing better speed
and bottom. Each rider had his own friends to take leave
of, and convey messages for, and a very lively morning it
was on every hand. At last, Mr. Pynchon took his horse's
rein upon his arm, and, with John at his side, moved off,
while Holyoke and Mary followed in the same manner—
John to receive some final directions in the management of
affairs at home, and to be Mary's company back, and Mary
to part with her lover.

The lovers walked for some time in silence, for many eyes
were upon them. As soon as the limits of the neighborhood
were passed, Holyoke exclaimed with a sigh, “The
Autumn! It seems a very long time till then!”

“A very short time it seems to me,” responded Mary,
looking into his face with a cheerful smile.

“How can you say that, and love me as you say you
love me?” inquired Holyoke, incredulously.

“Do you wish to have me talk very plainly with you,
Elizur?” and Mary laid her hand on his shoulder, and
looked into his eyes with an earnestness and a simplicity
that art never simulated and may never simulate.

“Always, my love.”

“Well, then, I am very glad you are going to leave me,
and I hope you will change very much before you get back
again.”

“Enigmas again!” and Holyoke smiled in a very sickly
manner.

“No enigmas at all,” replied Mary. “When you first
came here, you were the man I loved, and you acted like
him; now you are the same man in disguise, and it is my
fault. Then you were all life and ambition, and grace and
gallantry; now, you speak to no one but me, and mope all
day.”

“Then you are sick of me!”

For this speech Holyoke received a look that he understood.
It had been repeated several times during his visit,
whenever he had given utterance to an unworthy suspicion.
Begging her pardon at once, he asked her to explain the
ideas she intended to convey.

“You men,” said Mary, “lead a busy, rough life. Your
minds are occupied by great enterprises that engross your
time, your strength, and your best ingenuity. When you
are thus engaged in business, love is an intruder or, perhaps,
a favored guest, who sits at your table, and takes your
hand at morning and evening, and sees you no more. But
let love find your minds vacant, and you give yourselves
over to it until it possesses you, and you forget every other
relation in the one that is sweetest. There is nothing
natural or healthy in such a condition. You think I am
cold—that I do not even appreciate the intensity of your
love. I have shocked you often, and always with the best
intentions, when I have had any definite intentions at all.
I might have become just as insane—I pray you forgive the
word—as you, had I not possessed a corrective of the natural
tendencies, in my household cares and daily duties; and
I bless the circumstances that kept me from forgetting

myself and all around me in an all-absorbing passion. I
have been to blame for not insisting that you should go out
with your companions, and divide your thoughts in active
pursuits.”

Poor Holyoke did not know what to say to such a dissection
of his love. It humbled him, and half vexed him—the
more, doubtless, because he knew that Mary was right.

As he said nothing, Mary continued, more playfully, “It
is well enough for a lover in doubt of the good will of the
object of his suit, to be timid and without words, but for
one who knows he possesses the heart of his mistress to lose
his tongue is very reliable evidence that he has, temporarily
at least, lost his reason.”

“Well, Mary,” said Holyoke, with a sigh that would
have seemed painful if it had not been ludicrous, “I hope I
shall recover from this in time, but cold water makes rather
a serious bath for a man in a fever.”

“I see,” exclaimed Mary, “the crisis is past! That last
speech is decidedly a symptom of amendment.”

And then both, with a sense of the ludicrousness of the
scene, and a realization of a hundred sillinesses in the past,
laughed until Holyoke's horse, apparently astonished, turned
his head around and looked them in the face. The remainder
of the distance to the summit of the hill was occupied
with practical Christian conversation, with promises of daily
remembrance in prayer, and with a conference upon matters
connected with an event which it had been decided
should take place in the following autumn. At length they
saw John returning, and Holyoke, pausing, took Mary's
hand within his own, and kissing her tenderly, exclaimed,
“May God have you in his holy keeping!” Then mounting
his horse with a leap that showed him again in possession
of his strength and his resolution, he rode briskly away,
and left Mary, (oh! inconsistency of human nature!) lonely,
weak, and weeping, to walk silently back to the almost
forsaken plantation.