74. CHAPTER LXXIV.
The rainbow to the storms of life;
The evening beam that smiles the clouds away.
— Bride of Abydos.
Morton rode along the edge of the lake at Matherton.
He passed under the shadowy verdure of the pines, and approached
the old family mansion of the Leslies. It was
years since he had seen it. His imprisonment, his escape, his
dreary greeting home, all lay between. He was the same
man, yet different; — with a mind calmed by experience, and
strong by action and endurance; an ardor which had lost all
of its intoxication, but none of its force; and which, as the
past and the present rose upon his thoughts, was tempered
with a melancholy which had in it nothing of pain.
The hall door stood open, as if to welcome him. The
roses and the laurels were in bloom; the grass, ripe for the
scythe, was waving in the meadow; and, by glimpses between
the elm and maple boughs, the lake, crisped in the June wind,
was sparkling with the sunlight.
Morton dismounted; his foot was on the porch; but he
had no time for thought; for a step sounded in the hall, and
Edith met him on the threshold.
That evening, at sunset, Miss Leslie and Morton stood on
the brink of the lake, at the foot of the garden. It was the
spot which had been most sweet and most bitter in the latter's
recollections.
“Do you remember, Edith, when we last stood here?”
“How could I ever forget?”
“The years that have passed since are like a nightmare.
I could believe them so, but that I feel their marks.”
“And I, as well; we were boy and girl then.”
“At least, I was a boy; and, do you know, I find you different
from what I had pictured you.”
“Should I be sorry for it, or glad?”
“I had pictured you as I saw you last, very calm, very
resolute, very sad; but you are like the breaking of a long,
dull storm. The sun shines again, and the world glows the
brighter for past rain and darkness.”
“Could I have welcomed you home with a sad face?
Could I be calm and cold, now that I have found what I
thought was lost forever? — when the ashes of my life have
kindled into flame again? Because I, and others, have
known sorrow, should I turn my face into a homily, and be
your lifelong memento mori?”
“It is a brave heart that can hide a deep thought under a
smile.”
“And a weak one that is always crouching among the
shadows.”
“There is an abounding spirit of faith in you; the essence
which makes heroes, from Joan of Arc to Jeanie Deans.”
“I know no one with faith like yours, which could hold to
you through all your years of living burial.”
“Mine! it was wrenched to its uttermost roots. I thought
the world was given over to the devil.”
“But that was only for the moment.”
“I consoled myself with imagining that I had come to the
worst, and that any change must needs be for the better;
but now I am lifted of a sudden to such a pitch of fortune,
that I tremble at it. Many a man, my equal or superior, no
weaker in heart or meaner in aim than I, has been fettered
through his days by cramping poverty, while I stand mailed
and weaponed at all points. Many a man of noble instincts
and high requirements has found in life nothing but a mockery
of his imaginings, — a bright dream, matched with a base
reality. Who can blame him if he turn cynic? I have
dreamed a dream, too; wakened, and found it a living
truth.”
