University of Virginia Library

50. CHAPTER L.
THE LAST CHAPTER.

IT was eight years after Tina left us on the wharf in Boston
when I met her again. Ellery Davenport had returned to
this country, and taken a house in Boston. I was then a lawyer
established there in successful business.

Ellery Davenport met me with open-handed cordiality, and
Tina with warm sisterly affection; and their house became one
of my most frequent visiting-places. Knowing Tina by a species
of divination, as I always had, it was easy for me to see through
all those sacred little hypocrisies by which good women instinctively
plead and intercede for husbands whom they themselves
have found out. Michelet says, somewhere, that “in marriage
the maternal feeling becomes always the strongest in woman, and
in time it is the motherly feeling with which she regards her husband.”
She cares for him, watches over him, with the indefatigable
tenderness which a mother gives to a son.

It was easy to see that Tina's affection for her husband was no
longer a blind, triumphant adoration for an idealized hero, nor the
confiding dependence of a happy wife, but the careworn anxiety
of one who constantly seeks to guide and to restrain. And I was
not long in seeing the cause of this anxiety.

Ellery Davenport was smitten with that direst curse, which,
like the madness inflicted on the heroes of some of the Greek
tragedies, might seem to be the vengeance of some incensed
divinity. He was going down that dark and slippery road, up
which so few return. We were all fully aware that at many
times our Tina had all the ghastly horrors of dealing with a madman.
Even when he was himself again, and sought, by vows,
promises, and illusive good resolutions, to efface the memory
of the past, and give security for the future, there was no rest
for Tina. In her dear eyes I could read always that sense of

overhanging dread, that helpless watchfulness, which one may
see in the eyes of so many poor women in our modern life, whose
days are haunted by a fear they dare not express, and who
must smile, and look gay, and seem confiding, when their very
souls are failing them for fear. Still these seasons of madness
did not seem for a while to impair the vigor of Ellery Davenport's
mind, nor the feverish intensity of his ambition. He was
absorbed in political life, in a wild, daring, unprincipled way, and
made frequent occasions to leave Tina alone in Boston, while
he travelled around the country, pursuing his intrigues. In one
of these absences, it was his fate at last to fall in a political duel.

Ten years after the gay and brilliant scene in Christ Church,
some of those who were present as wedding guests were again
convened to tender the last offices to the brilliant and popular
Ellery Davenport. Among the mourners at the grave, two
women who had loved him truly stood arm in arm.

After his death, it seemed, by the general consent of all, the
kindest thing that could be done for him, to suffer the veil of silence
to fall over his memory.

Two years after that, one calm, lovely October morning, a quiet
circle of friends stood around the altar of the old church, when
Tina and I were married. Our wedding journey was a visit
to Harry and Esther in England. Since then, the years have
come and gone softly.

Ellery Davenport now seems to us as a distant dream of
another life, recalled chiefly by the beauty of his daughter,
whose growing loveliness is the principal ornament of our home.

Miss Mehitable and Emily form one circle with us. Nor
does the youthful Emily know why she is so very dear to the
saintly woman whose prayers and teachings are such a benediction
in our family.

Not long since we spent a summer vacation at Oldtown, to
explore once more the old scenes, and to show to young Master
Harry and Miss Tina the places that their parents had told them

of. Many changes have taken place in the old homestead. The
serene old head of my grandfather has been laid beneath the
green sod of the burying-ground; and my mother, shortly after,
was laid by him.

Old Parson Lothrop continued for some years, with his antique
dress and his antique manners, respected in Oldtown as the shadowy
minister of the past; while his colleague, Mr. Mordecai
Rossiter, edified his congregation with the sharpest and most
stringent new school Calvinism. To the last, Dr. Lothrop remained
faithful to his Arminian views, and regarded the spread
of the contrary doctrines, as a decaying old minister is apt to, as
a personal reflection upon himself. In his last illness, which was
very distressing, he was visited by a zealous Calvinistic brother
from a neighboring town, who, on the strength of being a family
connection, thought it his duty to go over and make one last effort
to revive the orthodoxy of his venerable friend. Dr. Lothrop received
him politely, and with his usual gentlemanly decorum remained
for a long time in silence listening to his somewhat protracted
arguments and statements. As he gave no reply, his
friend at last said to him, “Dr. Lothrop, perhaps you are weak,
and this conversation disturbs you?”

“I should be weak indeed, if I allowed such things as you
have been saying to disturb me,” replied the stanch old doctor.

“He died like a philosopher, my dear,” said Lady Lothrop to
me, “just as he always lived.”

My grandmother, during the last part of her life, was totally
blind. One would have thought that a person of her extreme
activity would have been restless and wretched under this
deprivation; but in her case blindness appeared to be indeed
what Milton expressed it as being, “an overshadowing of the
wings of the Almighty.” Every earthly care was hushed, and
her mind turned inward, in constant meditation upon those great
religious truths which had fed her life for so many years.

Aunt Lois we found really quite lovely. There is a class of
women who are like winter apples, — all their youth they are
crabbed and hard, but at the further end of life they are full of
softness and refreshment. The wrinkles had really almost

smoothed themselves out in Aunt Lois's face, and our children
found in her the most indulgent and painstaking of aunties,
ready to run, and wait, and tend, and fetch, and carry, and willing
to put everything in the house at their disposal. In fact, the
young gentleman and lady found the old homestead such very
free and easy ground that they announced to us that they preferred
altogether staying there to being in Boston, especially as
they had the barn to romp in.

One Saturday afternoon, Tina and I drove over to Needmore
with a view to having one more gossip with Sam Lawson. Hepsy,
it appears, had departed this life, and Sam had gone over to
live with a son of his in Needmore. We found him roosting
placidly in the porch on the sunny side of the house.

“Why, lordy massy, bless your soul an' body, ef that ain't
Horace Holyoke!” he said, when he recognized who I was.

“An' this 'ere 's your wife, is it? Wal, wal, how this 'ere
world does turn round! Wal, now, who would ha' thought it?
Here you be, and Tiny with you. Wal, wal!”

“Yes,” said I, “here we are.”

“Wal, now, jest sit down,” said Sam, motioning us to a seat in
the porch. “I was jest kind o' 'flectin' out here in the sun; ben
a readin' in the Missionary Herald; they 've ben a sendin' missionaries
to Otawhity, an' they say that there ain't no winter
there, an' the bread jest grows on the trees, so 't they don't hev to
make none, an' there ain't no wood-piles nor splittin' wood, nor
nothin' o' that sort goin' on, an' folks don't need no clothes to
speak on. Now, I 's jest thinkin' that 'ere 's jest the country to
suit me. I wonder, now, ef they could n't find suthin' for me to
do out there. I could shoe the hosses, ef they hed any, and I
could teach the natives their catechize, and kind o' help round
gin'ally. These 'ere winters gits so cold here I 'm e'en a'most
crooked up with the rheumatiz —”

“Why, Sam,” said Tina, “where is Hepsy?”

“Law, now, hain't ye heerd? Why, Hepsy, she 's been dead,
wal, let me see, 't was three year the fourteenth o' last May when
Hepsy died, but she was clear wore out afore she died. Wal, jest
half on her was clear paralyzed, poor crittur; she could n't speak

a word; that 'ere was a gret trial to her. I don't think she was
resigned under it. Hepsy hed an awful sight o' grit. I used to
talk to Hepsy, an' talk, an' try to set things afore her in the best
way I could, so 's to git 'er into a better state o' mind. D' you
b'lieve, one day when I 'd ben a talkin' to her, she kind o' made a
motion to me with her eye, an' when I went up to 'er, what
d' you think? why, she jest tuk and BIT me! she did so!”

“Sam,” said Tina, “I sympathize with Hepsy. I believe if I
had to be talked to an hour, and could n't answer, I should bite.”

“Jes' so, jes' so,” said Sam. “I 'spex 't is so. You see, women
must talk, there 's where 't is. Wal, now, don't ye remember
that Miss Bell, — Miss Miry Bell? She was of a good family
in Boston. They used to board her out to Oldtown, 'cause
she was 's crazy 's a loon. They jest let 'er go 'bout, 'cause
she did n't hurt nobody, but massy, her tongue used ter
run 's ef 't was hung in the middle and run both ends. Ye
really could n't hear yourself think when she was round.
Wal, she was a visitin' Parson Lothrop, an' ses he, `Miss Bell,
do pray see ef you can't be still a minute.' `Lord bless ye, Dr.
Lothrop, I can't stop talking!' ses she. `Wal,' ses he, `you
jest take a mouthful o' water an' hold in your mouth, an' then
mebbe ye ken stop.' Wal, she took the water, an' she sot still a
minute or two, an' it kind o' worked on 'er so 't she jumped up
an' twitched off Dr. Lothrop's wig an' spun it right acrost the
room inter the fireplace. `Bless me! Miss Bell,' ses he, `spit
out yer water an' talk, ef ye must!' I 've offun thought on 't,”
said Sam. “I s'pose Hepsy 's felt a good 'eal so. Wal, poor soul,
she 's gone to 'er rest. We 're all on us goin', one arter another.
Yer grandther 's gone, an' yer mother, an' Parson Lothrop, he 's
gone, an' Lady Lothrop, she 's kind o' solitary. I went over to
see 'er last week, an' ses she to me, `Sam, I dunno nothin' what
I shell do with my hosses. I feed 'em well, an' they ain't
worked hardly any, an' yet they act so 't I 'm 'most afeard to
drive out with 'em.' I 'm thinkin' 't would be a good thing ef
she 'd give up that 'ere place o' hern, an' go an' live in Boston
with her sister.”

“Well, Sam,” said Tina, “what has become of Old Crab
Smith? Is he alive yet?”

“Law, yis, he 's creepin' round here yit; but the old woman,
she 's dead,” said Sam. “I tell you she 's a hevin' her turn o'
hectorin' him now, 'cause she keeps appearin' to him, an' scares
the old critter 'most to death.”

“Appears to him?” said I. “Why, what do you mean,
Sam?”

“Wal, jest as true 's you live an' breathe, she does 'pear to
him,” said Sam. “Why, 't was only last week my son Luke an'
I, we was a settin' by the fire here, an' I was a holdin' a skein o'
yarn for Malviny to wind (Malviny, she 's Luke's wife), when
who should come in but Old Crab, head first, lookin' so scart an'
white about the gills thet Luke, ses he, `Why, Mistur Smith!
what ails ye?' ses he. Wal, the critter was so scared 't he
could n't speak, he jest set down in the chair, an' he shuk so 't
he shuk the chair, an' his teeth, they chattered, an' 't was a long
time 'fore they could git it out on him. But come to, he told us,
't was a bright moonlight night, an' he was comin' 'long down by
the Stone pastur, when all of a suddin he looks up an' there was
his wife walkin right 'long-side on him, — he ses he never see
nothin' plainer in his life than he see the old woman, jest in her
short gown an' petticut 't she allers wore, with her gold beads
round her neck, an' a cap on with a black ribbon round it, an' there
she kep' a walkin' right 'long-side of 'im, her elbow a touchin' hisn,
all 'long the road, an' when he walked faster, she walked faster,
an' when he walked slower, she walked slower, an' her eyes was
sot, an' fixed on him, but she did n't speak no word, an' he did n't
darse to speak to her. Finally, he ses he gin a dreadful yell an'
run with all his might, an' our house was the very fust place he
tumbled inter. Lordy massy, wal, I could n't help thinkin' 't
sarved him right. I told Sol 'bout it, last town-meetin' day, an'
Sol, I thought he 'd ha' split his sides. Sol said he did n't
know 's the old woman had so much sperit. `Lordy massy,' ses
he, `ef she don't do nothin' more 'n take a walk 'long-side on him
now an' then, why, I say, let 'er rip, — sarves him right.'”

“Well,” said Tina, “I 'm glad to hear about Old Sol; how is
he?”

“O, Sol? Wal, he 's doin' fustrate. He married Deacon

'Bijah Smith's darter, an' he 's got a good farm of his own, an'
boys bigger 'n you be, considerable.”

“Well,” said Tina, “how is Miss Asphyxia?”

“Wal, Sol told me 't she 'd got a cancer or suthin' or other the
matter with 'er; but the old gal, she jest sets her teeth hard, an'
goes on a workin'. She won't have no doctor, nor nothin' done
for 'er, an' I expect bimeby she 'll die, a standin' up in the harness.”

“Poor old creature! I wonder, Horace, if it would do any
good for me to go and see her. Has she a soul, I wonder, or is
she nothing but a `working machine'?”

“Wal, I dunno,” said Sam. “This 'ere world is cur'us.
When we git to thinkin' about it, we think ef we 'd ha' had the
makin' on 't, things would ha' ben made someways diffurnt from
what they be. But then things is just as they is, an' we can't
help it. Sometimes I think” said Sam, embracing his knee profoundly,
“an' then agin I dunno. — There 's all sorts o' folks
hes to be in this 'ere world, an' I s'pose the Lord knows what he
wants 'em fur; but I 'm sure I don't. I kind o' hope the Lord 'll
fetch everybody out 'bout right some o' these 'ere times. He ain't
got nothin' else to do, an' it 's his lookout, an' not ourn, what
comes of 'em all. — But I should like to go to Otawhity, an' ef
you see any o' these missionary folks, Horace, I wish you 'd
speak to 'em about it.”