University of Virginia Library

37. XXXVII.

MEANTIME Reuben was gaining, month by
month, in a knowledge of the world, — at least
of such portion of it as came within the range of his
vision in New York. He imagined it, indeed, a very
large portion, and took airs upon himself in consequence.
He thought with due commiseration of the
humble people of Ashfield. He wonders how he
could have tolerated so long their simple ways. The
Eagle Tavern, with its creaking sign-board, does not
loom so largely as it once did upon the horizon of his
thought. That he should ever have trembled as a lad
at walking up to the little corner bar, in company with
Phil! And as for Nat Boody, whose stories he once
listened to admiringly, what a scrubby personage he
has become in his eye! Fighting - dogs, indeed!
“Scamp” would be nothing to what he has seen a score
of times in the city!

He has put Phil through some of the “sights:” for
that great lout of a country lad (as Reuben could not
help counting him, though he liked his big, honest
heart for all that) had found him out, when he came to
New York to take ship for the West Indies.

“I say, Phil,” Reuben had said, as he marched his
old schoolmate up Broadway, “it 's rather a touch beyond
Ashfield, this, is n't it? How do you think Old
Boody's tavern and sign-board would look along here?”

And Phil laughed, quietly.

“I should like to see old Deacon Tourtelot,” continued
Reuben, “with Huldy on his arm, sloping down
Broadway. Would n't the old people stare?”

“I guess they would,” Phil said, demurely.

“I wonder if they 'd knock off at sundown Saturday
night,” continued Reuben, mockingly.

And his tone somehow hurt Phil, who had the memories
of the old home — a very dear one to him —
fresh upon him.

“And I suppose Miss Almiry keeps at her singing?”

“Yes,” said Phil, straining a point in favor of his
townswoman; “and I think she sings pretty well.”

“Pretty well! By Jove, Phil, you should have been
at the Old Park night before last; you would have
heard what I call singing. It would have stirred up
the old folks of Ashfield.”

And Phil met it all very seriously. It seemed to
him, in his honesty, that Reuben was wantonly cutting
asunder all the ties that once bound him to the old
home. It pained him, moreover, to think — as he did,
with a good deal of restiveness — that his blessed
mother, and Rose perhaps, and the old Squire, his

father, were among the Ashfield people at whom Reuben
sneered so glibly. And when he parted with him
upon the dock, — for Reuben had gone down to see
him off, — it was with a secret conviction that their
old friendship had come to an end, and that thenceforth
they two could have no sympathies in common.

But in this Phil was by no means wholly right.
The talk of Reuben was, after all, but the ebullition of
a city conceit, — a conceit which is apt to belong to all
young men at some period of their novitiate in city life.
He was mainly anxious to impress upon Phil the great
gain which he had made in knowledge of the world in
the last few years, and to astound him with the great
difference between his present stand-point and the old
one, when they were boys together on the benches of
the Ashfield meeting-house. We never make such
gains, or apparent gains, at any period of life, it is to
be feared, without wishing to demonstrate their magnitude
to the slow coaches we have left behind.

And on the very night after Reuben had parted from
Phil, when he came late to his chamber, dazed with
some new scene at the theater, and his brain flighty
with a cup too much, it may well have happened, that,
in his fevered restlessness, as the clock near by chimed
midnight, his thoughts ran back to that other chamber
where once sweet sleep always greeted him, — to the
overhanging boughs that rustled in the evening air at

the window, — to the shaded street that stretched away
between the silent houses, — to the song of the katydids,
chattering their noisy chorus, — to the golden
noons when light feet tripped along the village walks,
— to the sunny smiles of Rose, — to the kindly entreaty
of good Mrs. Elderkin, — and more faintly, yet
more tenderly, than elsewhere, to a figure and face far
remote, and so glorified by distance that they seem
almost divine, a figure and a face that are somehow
associated with the utterance of his first prayer, — and
with the tender vision before him, he mumbles the
same prayer and falls asleep with it upon his lip.

Only on his lip, however, — and the next day, when
he steals a half-hour for a stroll upon Broadway with
that dashing girl, Miss Sophia Bowrigg, (she is really
a stylish creature,) he has very little thought of the
dreamy sentiments of the night before, which seemed
for the time to keep his wilder vagaries in subjection,
and to kindle aspirations toward a better life. It is
doubtful, even, if he did not indulge in an artful compliment
or two to the dashing Miss Sophia, the point
of which lay in a cleverly covered contrast of herself
with the humdrum manners of the fair ones of Ashfield.
Yet, to tell truth, he is not wholly untouched
by certain little rallying, coquettish speeches of Miss
Sophia in respect to Adèle, who, in her open, girl-like
way, has very likely told the full story of Reuben's
city attentions.

Reuben had, indeed, been piqued by the French
girl's reception of his patronage, and he had been
fairly carried off his feet in view of her easy adaptation
to the ways of the city, and of her graceful carriage
under all the toilet equipments which had been
lavished upon her, under the advice of Mrs. Brindlock.
A raw boy comes only by long aptitude into the freedom
of a worldly manner; but a girl — most of all a
French girl, in whom the instincts of her race are
strong — leaps to such conquest in a day. Of course
he had intimated to Adèle no wonder at the change;
but he had thrust a stray glove of hers into his pocket,
counting it only a gallant theft; and there had been
days when he had drawn out that little relic of her
visit from its hidden receptacle, and smoothed it upon
his table, and pressed it, very likely, to his lips, in the
same way in which youth of nineteen or twenty are
used to treat such feminine tokens of grace.

It was a dainty glove, to be sure. It conjured up
her presence in its most alluring aspect. The rustle
of her silk, the glow of her cheek, the coyness of her
touch, whenever she has dropped that delicate hand
on his, came with the sight of it. He ventures, in a
moment of gallant exuberance, to purchase a half-dozen
of the same number, of very charming tints,
(to his eye,) and sends them as a gift to Adèle, saying,
—

“I found your stray glove we had a search for in the
carriage, but did not tell of it. I hope these will fit.”

“They fit nicely,” said Adèle, writing back to him,
— “so nicely, I may be tempted to throw another old
glove of mine some time in your way.”

Miss Eliza Johns was of course delighted with this
attention of Reuben's, and made it the occasion of
writing him a long letter, (and her letters were very
rare, by reason of the elaboration she counted necessary,)
in which she set forth the excellence of Adèle's
character, her “propriety of speech,” her “lady-like
deportment,” her “cheerful observance of duty,” and
her “eminent moral worth,” in such terms as stripped
all romance from Reuben's recollection of her, and
made him more than half regret his gallant generosity.

The Doctor writes to him regularly once a fortnight;
of which missives Reuben reads as regularly
the last third, containing, as it does usually, a little
home news or casual mention of Miss Rose Elderkin
or of the family circle. The other two thirds, mainly
expostulatory, he skips, only allowing his eye to glance
over them, and catch such scattered admonitions as
these: — “Be steadfast in the truth..... Let your
light shine before men..... Be not tempted of the
Devil; for if you resist him, he will flee from you.
.... The wisdom of this world is foolishness.....
Trust not, my son, in any arm of flesh.”

Ah, how much of such good advice had been twisted
into tapers for the lighting of Reuben's cigars! Not
because it was absolutely scorned; not because it was
held in contempt, or its giver held in contempt; but
because there was so much of it. If the old gentleman
had been in any imminent bodily peril, it is certain
that Reuben would have rushed far and wide to
aid him. It is certain that he loved him; it is certain
that he venerated him; and yet, and yet, (he said to
himself,) “I do wish he would keep this solemn stuff
for his sermons. Who cares to read it? Who cares
to hear it, except on Sundays?”

We all grow so weary with the iteration of even the
best of truths! we all love youth so much! we all love
the world so much! we all trust to an arm of flesh so
much!

Not for a moment did the Doctor believe that his
recreant son pondered wisely and deeply these successive
epistles of his. He knew him too well for that.
But for him duty was always duty. “Here a little, and
there a little.” It would have pained the old gentleman
grievously to know the full extent of the wickedness
of his boy, — to have looked for a moment into
the haunts to which he was beguiled by his companions
of the city, — to have seen his flushed and swollen face
after some of those revels to which Reuben was a
party. But the good Doctor was too ignorant of the

world to conceive, even, of larger latitude than an occasional
cigar or a stolen sight at the orgies of the
theater. And when Mr. Brindlock wrote, as he took
occasion to do about this period, regretting the extravagance
of Reuben and the bad associations into which
he had fallen, and urging the Doctor to impress upon
him the advantages of regularity and of promptitude,
and to warn him that a very advantageous business
career which was opening upon him would be blighted
by his present habits, the poor gentleman was fairly
taken aback.

That even this worldly gentleman, Mr. Brindlock,
should take exception to the courses of his son was a
most startling fact. What admonition could the Doctor
add to those which he had addressed to his poor son
fortnightly for years past? Had he not warned him over
and over that he was standing upon slippery places?
Had he not unfolded the terrors of God's wrath upon
sinners? Had he not set before him in “line upon line”
the awful truth that his immortal career was at stake?
And should he descend from this ground to plead with
him upon the score of his short-lived worldly career?
What were all business prospects, however they might
wane, compared with that dreadful prospect which lies
before him who refuseth godly counsel and hardeneth
his heart? Was it not a fearful comfirmation of
Satan's reign upon earth, that peril to a temporal career

should serve for warning against criminal excesses,
when the soul's everlasting peril was urged vainly?
The Doctor wrote to Reuben with even more than his
usual unction. But he could not bring himself to
warn his boy of the mere blight to his worldly career,
— that was so small a matter! Yet he laid before
him in graver terms than he had ever done before the
weight of the judgment of an offended God, and the
fearful retribution that would certainly overtake the
ungodly. Reuben lighted his cigar with the letter, not
unfeelingly, but indifferently, and ventured even upon
a blasphemous joke with his companions.

“It ought to burn,” he says. “There 's plenty of
brimstone in it!”

It would have crazed the minister of Ashfield to have
heard the speech. In his agony of mind he went to
consult Squire Elderkin, and laid before him the dire
accounts he had heard.

“Ah, young men will be young men, Doctor.
There 's time for him to come out right yet. It 's the
blood of the old Major; it must have vent.”

As the Doctor recalled what he counted his father's
godless death, he shuddered. Presently he talked of
summoning his boy home immediately.

“Well, Doctor,” said the Squire, meditatively, “there
are two sides to that matter. There are great temptations
in the city, to be sure; but if God puts a man in

the way of great temptations, I suppose He gives him
strength to resist them. Is n't that good theology?”

The parson nodded assent.

“We can always resist, if we will, Squire,” said he.

“Very good, Doctor. Suppose, now, you bring your
boy home; he 'll fret desperately under your long
lectures, and with Miss Eliza, and perhaps run off into
deviltries that will make him worse than those of the
city. You must humor him a little, Doctor; touch his
pride; there 's a fine, frank spirit at the bottom; give
him a good word now and then.”

“I know no word so good as prayer,” said the Doctor,
gravely.

“That 's very well, Doctor, very well. Mrs. Elderkin
gives him help that way; and between you and me,
Doctor, if any woman's prayers can call down blessings,
I think that little woman's can,” — and the
Squire's eyes fairly flashed with the dew that came into
them.

“An estimable lady, — most estimable!” said the
Doctor.

“Pray, if you will, Doctor; it 's all right; and for
my part, I 'll drop him a line, telling him the town
feels an ownership in him, and hopes he 'll do us all
credit. I think we can bring him out all right.”

“Thank you, — thank you, Squire,” said the Doctor,
with an unusual warmth.

And he wrought fervently in prayer that night;
may be, too, the hearty invocation of that good woman,
Mrs. Elderkin, joined with his in the Celestial Presence;
and if the kindly letter of the Squire did not
rank with the prayers, we may believe, without hardihood,
that the recording angel took note of it, and
gave credit on the account current of human charities.