University of Virginia Library

10. CHAPTER X.
A MEETING.

DAYS, fair and foul, went by; the fever kept about
its slow work in Marchants' Cove, and Skipper
George's daughter was sick. There came a very
beautiful afternoon, on the twelfth of that August. All
was fair, as if there were no provision in either sea or
sky for rain.

The wind from the sea was sweeping steadily over the
“gould” bushes on the Backside; the sky overhead was
clear, and if a cloud floated, it was above the wind; and
there it sailed slowly, as if it were a barge from which
some lovely spirits gazed upon the happy earth. The
little breakers played quietly, (at this distance no sound
comes up from them,) rejoicing, apparently, among themselves,
as if they were, what they are often called, living
“white horses.”

The wind took little notice of the childish trees that
lifted up their heads among the bushes, but scarcely yet
above them, and swept on toward the farther woods and
inner barrens, there to lay by what it was bringing of
health and freshness from the main.

The day was such as often draws one's longings forwards,
forwards, as the sweet wind goes, and brings into
the mind a gentle sorrow, because it cannot go along
farther or faster than the heavy body.

This neighborhood has seldom any stir of human life,
and birds and insects are not frequent here. The paths
are travelled most in winter; for they lead over to the
woods, crossing some swamps and ponds, perhaps, in the
way; and these are frozen at that season. They can be
traversed, however, (some of them,) at other times, by
those who are familiar with them, with no worse risk than
that of getting a wet foot at a careless moment, and they
are shorter ways of communication between the houses
on the harbor-road in Peterport and the next settlement,
towards Bay-Harbor, than is the main highway.

Some simple flowers grow here among the stones and
shrubs, and berries in their season. The linnæa borealis
puts up its pretty pinkness, (confounded with the blossom
of the cranberry by the people;) spiked willow-weed;
golden-rod; the sweet flower of the bake-apple, and other
pretty things grow quietly upon this ground, which is
scarce habitable for man. The graceful maidenhair, with
its pretty, spicy fruit; plumboys, bake-apples, crackers,
partridge-berries, horts, and others enrich the barrenness,
and make it worth the while for women and children to
come and gather them.

On this particular day, at this particular time, the
single figure of a gentleman in black dress was crossing
the surface of the shrubbery, just about midway between
the harbor's head and the outer point. He was walking
moderately, and any one, who saw him nearly, would
have seen his hands clasped before him, and a thoughtful,
serious look upon his face. Whoever knew him would
have known afar that it was the new Romish priest.

Just as he turned a short corner, where the growth of
little firs was rather thicker than elsewhere, there started
up at his step a pretty thing; no bird, but a sweet little

girl, with the flushed face of one who had been stooping
long, and the loose locks, that were a fairer covering for
the lovely head than the straw-hat which hung adown
her shoulders. The little thing, before collecting herself,—before
seeing fairly the person who had come so
suddenly upon her,—said in a startled way, “Who are
you?”

After looking at him for a moment, however, she came
straight up to him, with her eyes fixed on his face, and said,
“I've got a great many berries.”

At the same time she held up, in a sweet way, still
looking straight upon his face, her apron, heavy with the
load that she had been gathering.

“Thank you, my little child; I don't want any of
them,” answered Mr. Debree, scarcely heeding the child,
who was looking up so steadily upon him. Then, as the
little creature was about to turn away, rebuffed and distanced
by his manner, he recalled himself from his abstractedness,
and, condescending to her, asked,

“Do you wish me to take one of your berries?”

“Yes, if you please, a great many. Were you looking
for me when you came here?”

“No, my child,” answered he again kindly, “I didn't
know that you were here.”

“Oh! yes. I've been here a great while; I've been
here a great many hours; I don't know how long I've
been here. Do you know my mamma?”

“No. I don't know your mamma,” said he, patiently
keeping up the conversation with the talkative little thing,
whose voice was as pleasant as her look, and who evidently
wished to become better acquainted.

“Does your mamma let you come and stay here so
long all alone?” inquired he on his part.

“Why, no! I'm not alone. Don't you see?” said the
young thing, with that directness and satisfaction of having
the advantage of a “great man,” which also grown-up
children show in the same way when they find themselves
better informed in some particular than some others
are.

As she said these words, there rose from the near
bushes a merry laugh of little ones, who had been hearing
all, unseen, and had been, very likely, on the point of
breaking out before.

“Don't you hear those children? They are with me;
and there's a woman over there, with a pink ribbon round
her neck, sitting by that rock; don't you see her? She'll
see that we don't get into any mischief.”

Mr. Debree smiled as she reported so glibly these last
words, words which sounded as if they had made a part
or the whole of the request or injunction given when
the children set forth from home. In the direction to
which his eye turned, as she spoke, the woman “with the
pink ribbon,” was plainly to be seen at no great distance.

These are tenacious little things these children; and a
kindhearted man, though he be a childless Romish priest,
cannot rudely break away from one of them that wishes
to detain him. Father Ignatius, though a little reserved,
was very gentle in his manner, and his voice had no
repulsive tone in it; the child seemed, as children do, to
draw towards him. She took his hand, although he had
several times turned to go on his way, and prepared to
lead him back again over his steps. He gently resisted.

“Where do you mean to lead me?” he asked.

She hesitated for a moment, as if abashed, and then,
loosing her hold of his hand, and turning one little foot

round upon it's toe, swaying her body, at the same time
a little away from him, asked timidly,

“Don't you want to go and see my mamma?”

“But I don't know your mamma, my child,” he answered,
taking this opportunity to effect his purpose of
keeping on his path; so saying “Good bye!” he walked
away. He turned his head ere long, and saw the child
unsatisfied standing still upon the same spot; her hands
holding up her loaded apron, her head bent forwards, and
her eyes fixed upon him. He stooped hastily, and hastily
came back, saying: “There's a pretty little flower
for you that I found under the fir-tree yonder.”

“Mamma said I was a little flower that grew in the
shade,” said the child, and then, as if trying again to
establish an intercourse between herself and her chance-companion,
asked him suddenly,

“Are you a minister?”

“Yes. What made you think so?”

“Do you know Mr. Wellon?” continued she in her
course of interrogation.

“Yes, I know him,” he answered, once more turning
to be gone.

“Do you love Mr. Wellon?” she went on, following
out her own little train of thought. “I know him, and
I love him very much; do you?” She put the second
interrogative at the end of the sentence, to compensate
for the diversion, in the middle clause, from the opening
question, as one brings up, to its first level, a rope that
has sagged in its length midway.

“Yes,” said he, as kindly and quietly as before, and
not persisting now in going on.

“Mr. Wellon hasn't any little children; have you got
any little children?” she asked.

“No,” answered he, turning away.

“Are you a Romis' pries'?” was her next inquiry,
using the words (except for childishness of pronunciation)
as familiarly as if she had been reading and spelling out
of a book of controversy, the little thing!

Seeing the gentleman change color slightly, or noticing,
perhaps, some other slight change which a child's eye so
readily detects and a child's mind interprets as well as it
knows how, she hastened to ask him, looking abashed,

“Is that bad?”

“Oh, no. But what made you think of it? Where
did you hear about Romish priests?”

“I don't know where I heard it. I heard it somewhere,”
answered the little one, in her simplicity. “I
heard mamma say it, and Mr. Wellon.”

“Did they say that I was one?” said he, in a lower
voice than before.

“No; they didn't say you; they said some men were
that.”

“And what sort of man do you think it is?”

“I think it's a man like you.”

“And why do you think it's a man like me?” he asked
again, smiling.

I don't know; I think it is,” the little thing said, giving
a child's reason.

“And is it somebody like Mr. Wellon, do you
think?”

“Oh! no. It isn't a man like Mr. Wellon,” said she,
decidedly.

“What is Mr. Wellon, then? Do you know?”

“Oh, yes! I know Mr. Wellon is a minister of God,”
she answered, looking up to him.

“Who is your mamma?”

“Her name is Mrs. Barrè, and my name is Mary
Barrè. I'm her little daughter.”

“And how old are you, child?” he inquired, looking
away, over the water.

“I shall be a big girl pretty soon. I'm going on six.
That's pretty big, isn't it? Mamma says I shall be a
woman pretty soon, if I live, because my papa's gone.”

Mr. Debree, at these words, looked back at the child,
and said, “Where is he gone?”

She answered as if she were sure of having made a
friend of him, “I think he's gone up in the sky; for my
mamma wears black clothes, and cries sometimes; and
that's what people do when some one goes up in the sky.
I think he's been gone about thirty years.” This last she
said with the same innocent confidence as the rest; lavishing
the time like any other treasure of unknown worth.

Her companion did not smile, but stood and looked at
her, and then turned again and walked away; and the
little thing, as if satisfied with having established so much
of an acquaintance as to have let him know who she was,
and how old, turned up the path, without looking back.

Presently she was singing at the top of her voice, as
she sat upon a stone:—

Then as if her little rhyme had been a sacred hymn, from
Holy Writ or the Church Service, she added, “Glory be
to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost,—in
the beginning,—ever shall be, world avout end, Amen.”

The children, who had been playing or picking berries,

close at hand, started up like a covey of birds, and joined
little Mary, and the “woman with the red ribbon,” who
was not far off, came at almost the same moment.

“What was 'e saying to 'ee, lovey?” and “what did 'e
come back for?” and “what did he tell 'ee about a
praste?” “Do you know him?” and other like, were the
cloud of questions that swarmed about little Mary from
the woman and the children; the woman not forgetting at
the same time, to put the straw hat which had been hanging,
as we said, from our little acquaintance's neck, into
its proper place upon her head.

From amidst this swarm of sharp interrogatories, Mary
started off to flee. She fell and scattered a good many of
her berries before she got far, gathered up as many as
she could, before the company, which followed slowly,
overtook her, and then managed to keep in front of them,
and then of such as were left of them, (for they dropped
off by degrees,) until she reached her home.

Mrs. Barrè, in receiving her, thanked the woman who
had kept her in sight, and bought, at the same time, some
quarts of berries, by way of returning a favor; then took
Mary up in her arms, and hurried to hear her account of
her doings.

“Please ma'am,” called the worthy neighbor after her,
“there was a gentleman stopped and talked wi' she some
while. He said no harm, I don't think, for I kept anighst
'em, but 'e was this 'am' handsome-looking praste that's
comed, as they says, to live in the harbor; 'is name's
somethin, I don' rightly mind; and he gave her bit of a
posey, ef she's a-got 'n now.”

The mother thanked her again, and for informing her
of the child's talking with that gentleman, saying she
would ask about her afternoon's adventures.

To this the little adventurer herself, fresh from the excitement,
assented very cordially.

“I talked very kindly to him, mamma,” said Mary,
when they were alone together, inside. “I told him I
was your little girl, and he wanted to know what a Romis'
pries' was, and I told him I thought he was a Romis'
pries'; and he asked me whether my papa was gone up in
the sky.”

“Are you sorry that your papa is gone?” asked Mrs.
Barrè.

“Yes, I always am sorry; why do you ask me that a
great many times, mamma?”

“Sometimes I forget; and I want you to love Heavenly
Father very much, and pray to Him. Where is the
flower he gave you, darling?”

“There it is, mamma, and I'll give it to you,” said the
little one, dragging it forth from among her berries.

“Thank you, love,” said her mother, kissing her, and
taking the flower, which she did not return.