University of Virginia Library

50. L.

PHIL had at no time given over his thought of
Adèle, and of the possibility of some day winning
her for himself, though he had been somewhat staggered
by the interview already described with Reuben.
It is doubtful, even, if the quiet permission which this
latter had granted (or, with an affectation of arrogance,
had seemed to grant) had not itself made him pause.
There are some things which a man never wants any
permission to do; and one of those is — to love a
woman. All the permissions — whether of competent
authority or of incompetent — only retard him. It is
an affair in which he must find his own permit, by his
own power; and without it there can be no joy in conquest.

So when Phil recalled Reuben's expression on that
memorable afternoon in his chamber, — “You may
marry her, Phil,” — it operated powerfully to dispossess
him of all intention and all earnestness of pursuit.
The little doubt and mystery which Reuben had
thrown, in the same interview, upon the family relations
of Adèle, did not weigh a straw in the comparison.

He had plunged into his business pursuits with a new
zeal, and easily put away all present thought of matrimony,
by virtue of that simple “may” of Reuben's.

But now when, on coming back, he found her in his
own home, — so tenderly cared for by mother and by
sister, — so coy and reticent in his presence, the old
fever burned again. It was not now a simple watching
of her figure upon the street that told upon him; but
her constant presence; — the rustle of her dress up
and down the stairs; her fresh, fair face every day at
table; the tapping of her light feet along the hall; the
little musical bursts of laughter (not Rose's, — oh,
no!) that came from time to time floating through the
open door of his chamber. All this Rose saw and
watched with the highest glee, — finding her own little,
quiet means of promoting such accidents, — and rejoicing
(as sisters will, where the enslaver is a friend) in
the captivity of poor Phil. For an honest lover, propinquity
is always dangerous, — most of all, the propinquity
in one's own home. The sister's caresses of the
charmer, the mother's kind looks, the father's playful
banter, and the whisk of a silken dress (with a new
music in it) along the balusters you have passed night
and morning for years, have a terrible executive
power.

In short, Adèle had not been a month with the
Elderkins before Phil was tied there by bonds he had
never known the force of before.

And how was it with Adèle?

That strong, religious element in her, — abating no
jot in its fervor, — which had found a shock in the
case of Reuben, met none with Philip. He had
slipped into the mother's belief and reverence, not by
any spell of suffering or harrowing convictions, but by
a kind of insensible growth toward them, and an easy,
deliberate, moderate living by them, which more active
and incisive minds cannot comprehend. He had no
great wastes of doubt to perplex him, like Reuben,
simply because his intelligence was of a more submissive
order, and never tested its faiths or beliefs by that
delicately sensitive mental apparel with which Reuben
was clothed all over, and which suggested a doubt or a
hindrance where Phil would have recognized none;
— the best stuff in him, after all, of which a hale,
hearty, contented man can be made, — the stuff that
takes on age with dignity, that wastes no power, that
conserves every element of manliness to fourscore.
Too great keenness does not know the name of content;
its only experience of joy is by spasms, when
Idealism puts its prism to the eye and shows all things
in those gorgeous hues, which to-morrow fade. Such
mind and temper shock the physique, shake it down,
strain the nervous organization; and the body, writhing
under fierce cerebral thrusts, goes tottering to the
grave. Is it strange if doubts belong to those writhings?

Are there no such creatures as constitutional
doubters, or, possibly, constitutional believers?

It would have been strange if the calm, mature repose
of Phil's manner, — never disturbed except when
Adèle broke upon him suddenly and put him to a momentary
confusion, of which the pleasant fluttering of
her own heart gave account, — strange, if this had not
won upon her regard, — strange, if it had not given
hint of that cool, masculine superiority in him, with
which even the most ethereal of women like to be impressed.
There was about him also a quiet, businesslike
concentration of mind which the imaginative girl
might have overlooked or undervalued, but which the
budding, thoughtful woman must needs recognize and
respect. Nor will it seem strange, if, by contrast, it
made the excitable Reuben seem more dismally afloat
and vagrant. Yet how could she forget the passionate
pressure of his hand, the appealing depth of that gray
eye of the parson's son, and the burning words of his
that stuck in her memory like thorns?

Phil, indeed, might have spoken in a way that would
have driven the blood back upon her heart; for there
was a world of passionate capability under his calm
exterior. She dreaded lest he might. She shunned
all provoking occasion, as a bird shuns the grasp of
even the most tender hand, under whose clasp the
pinions will flutter vainly.

When Rose said now, as she was wont to say, after
some generous deed of his, “Phil is a good, kind, noble
fellow!” Adèle affected not to hear, and asked Rose,
with a bustling air, if she was “quite sure that she had
the right shade of brown” in the worsted work they
were upon.

So the Christmas season came and went. The
Squire cherished a traditional regard for its old festivities,
not only by reason of a general festive inclination
that was very strong in him, but from a desire to protest
in a quiet way against what he called the pestilent
religious severities of a great many of the parish, who
ignored the day because it was a high holiday in the
Popish Church, and in that other, which, under the
wing of Episcopacy, was following, in their view, fast
after the Babylonish traditions. There was Deacon
Tourtelot, for instance, who never failed on a Christmas
morning — if weather and sledding were good —
to get up his long team (the restive two-year-olds upon
the neap) and drive through the main street, with a
great clamor of “Haw, Diamond!” and “Gee, Buck
and Bright!” — as if to insist upon the secular character
of the day. Indeed, with the old-fashioned New-England
religious faith, an exuberant, demonstrative
joyousness could not gracefully or easily be welded.
The hopes that reposed even upon Christ's coming,
with its tidings of great joy, must be solemn. And

the anniversary of a glorious birth, which, by traditionary
impulse, made half the world glad, was to such believers
like any other day in the calendar. Even the
good Doctor pointed his Christmas prayer with no special
unction. What, indeed, were anniversaries, or a
yearly proclamation of peace and good-will to men,
with those who, on every Sabbath morning, saw the
heavens open above the sacred desk, and heard the
golden promises expounded, and the thunders of coming
retribution echo under the ceiling of the Tabernacle?

The Christmas came and went with a great lighting-up
of the Elderkin house; and there were green garlands
which Rose and Adèle have plaited over the
mantel, and over the stiff family portraits; and good
Phil — in the character of Santa Claus — has stuffed
the stockings of all the grandchildren, and — in the
character of the bashful lover — has played like a moth
about the blazing eyes of Adèle.

Yet the current of the village gossip has it, that they
are to marry. Miss Eliza, indeed, shakes her head
wisely, and keeps her own counsel. But Dame Tourtelot
reports to old Mistress Tew, — “Phil Elderkin is
goin' to marry the French girl.”

“Haöw?” says Mrs. Tew, adjusting her tin trumpet.

“Phil Elderkin — is — a-goin' to marry the French
girl,” screams the Dame.

“Du tell! Goin' to settle in Ashfield?”

“I don't know.”

“No! Where, then?” says Mistress Tew.

“I don't KNOW,” shrieks the Dame.

“Oh!” chimes Mrs. Tew; and, after reflecting
awhile and smoothing out her cap-strings, she says, —
“I 've heerd the French gurl keeps a cross in her
chamber.”

“She DOOZ,” explodes the Dame.

“I want to know! I wonder the Squire don't put a
stop to 't.”

“Doän't believe he would if he COULD,” says the
Dame, snappishly.

“Waäl, waäl! it 's a wicked world we 're a-livin' in,
Miss Tourtelot.” And she elevates her trumpet, as if
she were eager to get a confirmation of that fact.