University of Virginia Library

15. CHAPTER XV.
MISS WALTON'S DREAM.

THE hickory fire blazed cheerily in the parlor
after tea, and all drew gladly around its welcome
blaze. But even the delights of roasting chestnuts
from the abundant spoils of the afternoon,
could not keep the little heads of the children from
drooping early.

Walter was greatly fatigued, and soon went to his
room also.

Sabbath morning dawned dimly and uncertainly,
but by the time they had gathered at the breakfast-table,
a northeast rain-storm had set in with a driving
gale.

“I suppose you will go to church `in speret'
this morning, as Mr. Tuggar would say,” said Walter
addressing Annie.

“If I were on the sick list I should, but I have
no such excuse.”

“You seriously do not mean to ride two miles in
such a storm as this?”

“No, not seriously, but very cheerfully and
gladly.”

“I do not think it is required of you, Miss Walton.

Even your Bible states, `I will have mercy
and not sacrifice.'”

“The `sacrifice' in my case would be in staying
home. I like to be out in a storm, and have plenty
of warm blood to resist its chilling effects. But even
were it otherwise, what hardship is there in my
wrapping myself up in a waterproof, and riding a few
miles to a comfortable church? I shall come back
with a grand appetite, and a double zest for the
wood fire.”

“But it is not fair on the poor horses. They
have no waterproofs or wood fires.”

“I think I am not indifferent to the comfort of
dumb animals, and though I drive a good deal,
father can tell you I am not a `whip.' But of all
shams to me the most transparent is this tenderness
for one's self and the horses on Sunday. I am often
out in stormy weather during the week, and meet
plenty of people on the road. The farmers drive to
the village on rainy days because they can neither
plough, sow, nor reap. But on even a cloudy Sabbath,
with the faintest prospect of rain, there is but
one text in the Bible for them: `A righteous man
regardeth the life of his beast.' People attend parties,
the opera, and places of amusement no matter
how bad the night. It is a miserable pretence to
say that the weather keeps the majority home from
church. It is only an excuse for staying away. I
would have a great deal more respect for them if
they would say frankly, `We would rather sleep, read
a novel, dawdle around en déshabillé, and gossip.'

Half the time when they say it's too stormy to venture
out (oh! the heroism of our Christian age!)
they should go and thank God for the rain that is
providing food for them and theirs.

“And granting that our Christian duties do involve
some risk and hardship, does not the Bible
ever speak of life as a warfare, a struggle, an agonizing
for success? Do not armies often fight and
march in the rain and dumb beasts share their exposure?
There is more at stake in this battle. In
ancient times God commanded the bloody sacrifice
of innumerable animals for the sake of moral and
religious effect. Moral and religious effect are worth
just as much now. Nothing can excuse wanton
cruelty. But the soldier who spurs his horse against
the enemy, and the sentinel who keeps his out in a
winter storm, are not cruel. But many farmers about
here will over-work and under-feed all the week,
and on Sunday talk about being `merciful to their
beasts.' There won't be over twenty-five at church
to-day, and the Christian heroes, the sturdy yeomanry
of the church, will be dozing and grumbling
in chimney corners. The languid half-heartedness
of the church discourages me more than all the evil
in the world.”

Miss Walton stated her views in a quiet undertone
of indignation and not so much in answer to
Gregory, as a protest against a style of action utterly
repugnant to her earnest, whole-souled nature. As
Walter saw the young girl's face light up with the
will and purpose to be loyal to a noble cause, his

own aimless, self-pleasing life seemed petty and contemptible
indeed, and again he had that painful
sense of humiliation which miss Walton unwittingly
caused him; but as was often his way, he laughed
the matter off by saying:

“There is no need of my going to church to-day,
for I have had my sermon, and a better one than
you will hear. Still, such is the effect of your homily
that I am inclined to ask you to take me with
you.”

Annie's manner changed instantly, and she smilingly
answered:

“You will find an arm-chair before a blazing fire
in your room up stairs, and an arm-chair before a
blazing fire in the parlor, and you can vacillate
between them at your pleasure.”

“As a vacillating man should, perhaps you might
add.”

“I add nothing of the kind.”

“Will you never let me go to church with you
again?”

“Certainly, after what you said, any pleasant
day.”

“Why can't I have the privilege of being a martyr
as well as yourself?”

“I'm not a martyr. I would far rather go out
to-day than stay at home.”

“It will be very lonely without you.”

“Oh, you are the martyr then, after all. I hope
you will have sufficient fortitude to endure, and doze
comfortably during the two hours of my absence.”

“Now you are satirical on Sunday, Miss Walton.
Let that burden your conscience. I'm going to ask
your father if I may go.”

“Of course you will act your pleasure,” said Mr.
Walton, “but I think, in your present state of
health, Annie has suggested the wiser and safer
thing to do.”

“I should probably be ill on your hands if I
went, so I submit; but I wish you to take note,
Miss Walton, that I have the `speret to go.'”

The arm-chairs were cosey and comfortable, and
the hickory wood turned, as is its wont, into glowing
and fragrant coals, but the house grew chill and
empty the moment Annie left. Though Mr. Walton
and Miss Eulie accompanied her, their absence was
rather welcome, but he felt sure that Annie could
have beguiled the heavy-footed hours.

“She has some unexplained power of making me
forget my miserable self,” he muttered.

And yet, left to himself, he had now nothing to
do but think, and a fearful time he had of it, lowering
at the fire, in the arm-chair, from which he
scarcely stirred.

“I have lost my vantage ground,” he groaned—
“lost it utterly. I am not even a `well-meaning
man.' I purpose evil against this freshest, purest
spirit I have ever known since in this house I looked
into my mother's eyes. I am worse than the wild
Arab of the desert. I have eaten salt with them; I
have partaken of their generous hospitality, given so
cordially for the sake of one that is dead, and in

return have wounded their most sacred feelings, and
now propose to prove the daughter a creature that I
can go away and despise. Instead of being glad
that there is one in the world noble and good—even
though by accident; instead of noting with pleasure
that every sweet flower has not become a weed, I
wish to drag her down to my own wretched level, or
else I would have her exhibit sufficient weakness to
show that she would go as far as she was tempted to
go. A decent devil could hardly wish her worse.
I would like to see her show the same spirit that
animates Miss Belle St. Clair of New York, or Mrs.
Grobb, my former adored Miss Bently—creatures
that I despise as I do myself, and what more could
I say? If I could only cause her to show some of
their characteristics the reproach of her life would
pass away, and I should be confirmed in my belief
that humanity's unutterable degradation is its misfortune,
and the blame should rest elsewhere than
on us. How absurd to blame water for running
down hill. Give man or woman half a chance, that
is, before habits are fixed, and they follow faster
down the inclined moral plane. And yet the plague
of it is, this seeming axiom does not seem to satisfy
me. What business has my conscience, with a lash
of scorpion stings, to punish me this and every day
that I permit myself to think? Did I not try for
years to be better? Did I not resist the infernal
gravitation, and yet I am falling still? I never did
anything so mean and low before as I am doing now.
If it is my nature to do evil, why should I not do it
without compunction? And as I look downward—
there is no looking forward for me—there seems no
evil thing that I could not do if tempted and so
inclined. Here in this home of my childhood, this
sacred atmosphere that my mother breathed, I would
besmirch the character of an as yet pure, good girl,
with a nature like a white hyacinth in spring. I see
the vileness of the act, I loathe it, and yet it fascinates
me, and I have no power to resist. Why
should a stern, condemning voice declare in the recesses
of my soul, you could and should resist? For
years I have been daily yielding to temptation, and
conscience as often pronounces sentence against me.
When will the hateful farce cease? Multitudes appear
to sin without thought or remorse. Why cannot
I? It's my mother's doings I suppose. A plague
upon the early memories of this place. Will they
keep me upon the rack forever?”

He rose, strode up and down the parlor and
clenched his hands in passionate protest against himself,
his destiny, and the God who made him.

A chillness, resulting partly from dread and
partly from the wild storm raging without, caused
him to heap up the hearth with wood. It speedily
leaped into flame, and, covering his face with his
hands, he sat cowering before it. A vain but frequent
thought recurred to him with double power.

“Oh that I could cease to exist, and lose this
miserable consciousness! Oh that, like this wood,
I could be aflame with intense passionate life, and
then lose identity, memory, and everything that

makes me, and pass into other forms. Nay, more,
if I had any wish, I would become nothing here and
now.”

The crackling of flames and rush of wind and
rain against the windows had caused the sound of
wheels, and a light step in the room to be unheard.

He was aroused by hearing Miss Walton ask:

“Mr. Gregory, are you ill?”

He raised his woe-begone face to hers, and said,
almost irritably:

“Yes—no—or at least I am as well as I ever
expect to be, and perhaps better.” Then with a
sudden impulse he asked, “Does annihilation seem
such a dreadful thing to you?”

“What! the losing of an eternity of keen enjoyment.
What could be more dreadful! Really,
Mr. Gregory, brooding here alone has not been good
for you. Why do you not think of pleasant things?”

“For the same reason that a man with a raging
toothache does not have pleasant sensations,” he
answered, with a grim smile.

“I admit the force of your reply though I do not
think the case exactly parallel. The mind is not as
helpless as the body. Still, I believe it is true that
when the body is suffering the mind is apt to become
the prey of all sorts of morbid fancies, and you do
look really ill. I wish I could give you some of my
rampant health and spirits to-day. Facing the October
storm has done me good every way, and I am
ravenous for dinner.”

He looked enviously at her as she stood before

him, with her waterproof, still covered with rain-drops,
partially thrown back and revealing the outline
of a form which, though not stout, was suggestive
of health and strenght. She seemed, with her
warm high color, like a hardy flower covered with
spray. Instead of shrinking feebly and delicately
from the harsher moods of nature, and coming in
pinched and shivering, the gale, seemingly, had only
quickened the blood in her veins and all the wheels
of life.

“Miss Walton,” he said, with a glimmer of a
smile, “do you know that you are very different
from most young ladies? You and nature evidently
have some deep secrets between you. I half believe
you never will grow old, but are one of the perennials.
I am real glad you have come home, for you
seem to bring a little of yesterday's sunshine into the
dreary house.”

As they returned to the parlor after dinner, Walter
said: “Miss Walton, what can you do to interest
me this afternoon, for I am devoured with ennui?”

She turned upon him rather sharply and said:

“A young man like you has no business to be
`devoured with ennui.' Why not engage in some
pursuit, or take up some subject that will interest
you and stir your sluggish pulse?”

With a touch of his old mock gallantry he bowed
and said:

“In you I see just the subject, and am delighted
to think I'm going to have you all to myself this
rainy afternoon.”

With a half-vexed laugh and somewhat heightened
color she answered:

“I imagine you won't have me all to yourself
long.”

She had hardly spoken the words before the
children bounded in, exclaiming:

“Now, Aunt Annie, for our stories.”

“You see, Mr. Gregory, here are previous and
counter claims already.”

“I wish I knew of some way of successfully disputing
them.”

“It would be difficult to find. Well, come little
kids, we will go into the sitting-room and not disturb
Mr. Gregory.”

“Now, I protest against that,” he said. “You
might at least let me be one of the children.”

“But the trouble is you won't be one, but will
sit by criticising and laughing at our infantile talk.”

“Now you do me wrong. I will be as good as I
know how, and if you knew how long and dreary the
day is you would not refuse.”

She looked at him keenly for a moment and then
said a little doubtfully, “Well, I will try for once.
Run and get your favorite Sunday books, children.”

When they were alone he asked:

“How can you permit these youngsters to be
such a burden on you?”

“They are not a burden,” she answered quietly.

“But a nurse could take care of them and keep
them quiet.”

“If their father and mother were living they

would not think `keeping them quiet' all their duty
toward them, nor do I, to whom they were left as a
sacred trust.”

“That awful word `Duty' rules you, Miss Walton,
with a rod of iron.”

“Do I seem like a harshly driven slave?” she
asked smilingly.

“No, and I cannot understand you.”

“That is because your philosophy of life is wrong.
You still belong to that old school who would have
it that sun, moon, and stars revolve around the earth.
But here are the books, and if you are to be one of
the children you must do as I bid you—be still and
listen.”

It was strange to Walter how content he was
to obey. He was surprised in his interest in the old
Bible stories told in childish language, and as Annie
stopped to explain a point or answer a question, he
found himself listening as the eager little boy sitting
on the floor at her feet. The hackneyed man of
the world could not understand how the true, simple
language of nature, like the little brown blossoms of
lichens, has a beauty and power of its own.

At the same time he had a growing consciousness
that there was something in the reader also which
perhaps mainly held his interest. It was pleasant to
listen to the low, musical voice. It was pleasant to
see the red lips drop the words so easily yet so distinctly,
and chief of all was a consciousness of a vitalized
presence that made the room seem full when

she was in it, and empty when she left, though all
others remained.

He really shared the children's regret when at
last she said:

“Now I am tired, and must go up stairs and rest
awhile before supper, after which we will have some
music. You can go in the sitting-room and look at
the pictures till the tea-bell rings. Mr. Gregory,
will my excuse to the children answer for you
also?”

“I suppose it must, though I have no pictures to
look at.”

She suddenly appeared to change her mind, and
said briskly:

“Come sir, what you need is work for others. I
have read to you and you ought to be willing to
read to me. If you please I will rest in the arm-chair
here instead of my room.”

“I will take your medicine,” he said eagerly,
“without a wry face, though an indifferent reader,
while I think you are a remarkably good one; and
let me tell you it is one of the rarest accomplishments
we find. You shall also choose the book.”

“What unaccountable amiableness!” she replied,
laughing. “I fear I shall reward you by going to
sleep.”

“Very well, anything so I am not left alone
again. I am wretched company for myself.”

“Oh, it is not for my sake you are so good, after
all.”

“You think me a selfish wretch, Miss Walton.”

“I think you are like myself, capable of much
improvement. But I wish to rest, and you must not
talk, but read. There is the Schonberg Cotta Family.
I have been over it two or three times, so if I lose
the thread of the story it does not matter.”

He wheeled the arm-chair up to the fire for her,
and for a while she listened with interest; but at
last her lids drooped and soon closed, and her regular
breathing showed that she was sleeping. He read
in lower and lower monitone lest his sudden stopping
should awaken her, then laid down his book and read
a different story in the pure young face turned toward
him.

“It is not beautiful,” he thought, “but it is a
real good face. I would not be attracted toward it
in a thronged and brilliant drawing-room. I might
not notice it on Fifth Avenue, but if I were ill and in
deep trouble, it is just such a face as I would like to
see bending over me. Am I not ill and in deep
trouble? I have lost my health and have lost my
manhood. What worse disasters this side death can
I experience. Be careful, Walter Gregory, you may
be breaking the one clue that can lead you out of
the labyrinth. You may be seeking to palsy the
one hand that can help you. Mother believed in a
special Providence. Is it her suggestion that now
flashes in my mind that God in mercy has brought
me to this place of sacred memories, and given me
the companionship of this good woman, that the
bitter waters of my life may be sweetened? I do
not know from whom else it can come.

“And yet the infernal fascination of evil? I cannot—I
will not give up my purpose toward her.
Vain dreams! Miss Walton nor an angel of light
could not reclaim me. My impetus downward is too
great. I am like Lucifer after he had been long falling
from heaven.

“Oh, the rest and peace of that face! Physical
rest and a quiet, happy spirit dwells in every line.
She sleeps there like a child, little dreaming that a
demon is watching her. But she says that she is
guarded. Perhaps she is. A strong viewless one
with a flaming sword may stand between her and
me.

“Weak fool! Enough of this. I shall carry out
my experiment fully, and when I have succeeded or
failed, I can come to some conclusion on matters now
in doubt.

“I would like to kiss those red parted lips. I
wonder what she would do if I did?”

Annie's brow darkened into a frown. Suddenly
she started up and looked at him, but seemed satisfied
from his distance and motionless aspect.

“What is the matter?” he asked.

“Oh, nothing. I had a dream,” she said with a
slight flush.

“Please tell it,” he said, though he feared her
answer.

“You will not like it. Besides, it's too absurd.”

“You pique my curiosity. Tell it by all means.”

“Well, then, you mustn't be angry; and remember,
I have no faith in sleeping vagaries. I dreamed

that you were transformed into a large tiger-cat, and
came stealthily to bite me.”

He was startled as he recalled his thought at the
moment of her awaking, but had the presence of
mind to say:

“Let me interpret the dream.”

“Well.”

“You know, I suppose, that dreams go by contraries.
Suppose a true friend wished to steal a kiss
in your unconsciousness.”

“True friends do not steal from us,” she replied,
laughing. “I don't know whether it was safe to let
you read me to sleep.”

“It's not wrong to be tempted, is it? One can't
help that. As Mr. Tuggar says, I might have the
`speret to do it,' and yet remain quietly in my chair,
as I have.”

“You make an admission in your explanation.
Well, it was queer,” she added absently.

Gregory thought so too, and was annoyed at her
unexpected clairvoyant powers. But he said, as if a
little piqued:

“If you think me a tiger-cat you had better not
sleep within my reach, or you may find your face
sadly mutilated on awaking.”

“Nonsense,” she said. “Mr. Gregory, you are a
gentleman. We are talking like foolish children.”

The tea-bell now rang, and Gregory obeyed its
summons in a very perplexed state. His manner
was rather absent during the meal, but Annie
seemed to take pains to be kind and reassuring.

The day, so far from being a restraint, appeared
one of habitual cheerfulness, which even the dreary
storm without could not dampen.

“We shall have a grand sing to-night with the
assistance of your voice, I hope, Mr. Gregory,” said
Mr. Walton as they all adjourned to the parlor.

“I do not sing by note,” he replied. “When I
can I will join you, though I much prefer listening
to Miss Walton.”

“Miss Walton prefers nothing of the kind, and
we shall sing only what you know,” she said with a
smiling glance at him over her shoulder as she was
making selections from the music-stand.

Soon they were all standing round the piano,
save Mr. Walton, who sat near in his arm-chair, his
face the picture of placid enjoyment as he looked on
the little group so dear to him. They began with
the children's favorites from the Sabbath-school
books, the little boy dutifully finding the place for
his grandfather. Many of them were the same as
Gregory had sung long years before, standing in the
same place, a child like Johnny, and the vivid memories
thus recalled made his voice a little husky
occasionally. Annie once gave him a quick look of
sympathy, not curious but appreciative.

“She seems to know what is passing in my soul,”
he thought; “I never knew a woman with such intuitions.”

The combined result of their voices was true
home music, in which were blended the tones of
childhood and age. Annie, with her sweet soprano,

led, and gave time and key to them all, very much
as by the force and loveliness of her character she
influenced the daily harmony of their lives. The
children, with their imitative faculty, seemed to
gather from her lips how to follow with fair correctness,
and they chirped through the tunes as two
intelligent robins might. Miss Eulie sang a sweet
though rather faint alto that was like a low minor
key in a happy life. Mr. Walton's melody was
rather that of the heart, for his voice was returning
to the weakness of childhood again, and his ear
scarcely quick enough for the rapid changes of the
air, and yet, unless “Grandpa” joined with them, all
felt that the circle was incomplete.

Gregory was a foreign element in the little group,
almost a stranger to its personnel, and more estranged
from the sacred meanings and feeling of the hour;
yet such was the contagion of the example, so strong
were the sweet home-spells of this Christian family,
that to his surprise he found himself entering with
zest into a scene that on the Sabbath before he
would have regarded as an unmitigated bore. The
thought flashed across him:

“How some of my club acquaintances would
laugh to see me standing between two children singing
Sabbath-school hymns.”

It was also a sad fact that he could go away
from all present influences to spend the next Sabbath
at his club in the ordinary style. The “fleshpots
of Egypt,” the “leeks and onions,” are not
readily exchanged for manna, the “light-food” from

heaven which gross natures are prone to “loathe”
after the sensations of novelty have passed away.

When the children's hour had passed and they
had been tucked away to peaceful spring-time
dreams, though a storm, the precursor of winter,
raged without, Annie returned to the parlor and
said:

“Now, Mr. Gregory, we will have some singing
more to your taste.”

“I have been one of the children to-day,” he
replied, “so you must let me off with them from
any further singing myself.”

“If you insist on playing the children's rôle you
must go to bed. I have some grand old hymns that
I've been wishing to try with you.”

“Indeed, Miss Walton, I am but half a man. At
the risk of your contempt I must say in frankness
that my whole physical nature yearns for my arm-chair.
But please do not call my weakness laziness.
If you will sing to me just what you please, according
to your mood, I for one will be grateful.”

“Even a dragon could not resist such an appeal,”
said Annie, laughing, and she sat down to her piano
and soon partially forgot her audience, in an old
Sabbath evening habit, well known to natural musicians,
of expressing her deeper and more sacred feelings
in words and notes that harmonized with them.
Gregory sat and listened as the young girl unwitting
revealed a new element in her nature.

In her every-day life she appeared to him full of
force and power, practical and resolute. With his

sporting tastes she reminded him of a mettled steed
whose high spirit was kept in check by thorough
training. Her conversation was piquant, at times a
little brusque, and utterly devoid of sentimentality.
But now her choice of poetic thought and her tones
revealed a wealth of womanly tenderness, and he
was compelled to feel that her religion was not legal
and cold, a system of duties, beliefs, and restraints,
but something that seemed to stir the depths of her
soul with mystic longings and overflow her heart
with love. She was not adoring the Creator, nor
paying homage to a king; but, as the perfume rises
from a flower, so her voice and manner seemed the
natural expression of a true, strong affection for
God Himself, not afar off, but known as a near and
dear friend. In her sweet tones there was not the
faintest suggestion of the effect or style that a professional
singer would aim at. She thought no
more of these than would a brown thrush swaying
on its spray in the twilight of a June evening. As
unaffectedly as the bird she sang according to the
inward promptings of a nature purified and made
lovely by the grace of God.

No one not utterly given over to evil could have
listened unmoved, still less Walter, with his sensitive,
beauty-loving, though perverted nature. The spirit
of David's harp again breathed its divine peace on
his sin-disquieted soul. The music stole into his
heart as the angel entered the “lions' den,” and
every evil passion, like the savage beasts, was under
the restraint of a gentle but irresistible power. The

words of old Daddy Tuggar flashed across him, and
he muttered:

“Yes, she could take even me to heaven, `if she
stayed right by me.'”

When finally, with heart-felt sincerity, she sang
the following simple words to an air that seemed a
part of them, he envied her from the depths of his
soul, and felt that he would readily barter away any
earthly possession and life itself for a like faith:

Then she brought the old family Bible, indicating
after that hour she was in no mood for common-place
conversation. In the hush that followed, the
good old man reverently read a favorite passage,
which did not seem to consist of cold, printed words,

but was a part of a loving letter sent by the Divine
Father to his absent children.

As such it was received by all save Gregory. He
sat among them as a stranger and an alien, cut off
by his own acts from those ties which make one
household of earth and heaven. But such was the
influence of the evening upon him that he realized
as never before his loss and loneliness. He longed
intensely to share in their feelings, and for the right
to appropriate the words of love and promise that
Mr. Walton read.

The prayer that followed was so tender, so full
of heartfelt interest in his guest, that Gregory's feelings
were deeply touched. He arose from his knees,
and again shaded his face to hide the traces of his
emotion.

When at last he looked up, Mr. Walton was
quietly reading, and the ladies had retired. He
rose and bade Mr. Walton good night with a strong
but silent grasp of the hand.

The thought flashed across him as he went to his
room, that after this evening and the grasp as of
friendship he had just given the father, he could
not in the faintest degree meditate evil against the
daughter. But so conscious was he of moral weakness,
so self-distrustful in view of many broken resolutions,
he dared resolve on nothing. He at last fell
into a troubled sleep with the vain, regretful thought,
“Oh that I had not lost my vantage ground! Oh
that I could live my life over again!”