44. CHAPTER XLIV.
It was a splendid evening in July, and the sky was filled
high with gorgeous tabernacles of purple, and gold, the remains
of a grand thunder-shower which had freshened the
air, and set a separate jewel on every needle leaf of the old
pines.
Four years had passed since the fair Pearl of Orr's Island
had been laid beneath the gentle soil, which every year sent
monthly tributes of flowers to adorn her rest, great blue
violets, and starry flocks of ethereal eye-brights in spring, and
fringy asters, and golden rod in autumn. In those days the
tender sentiment which now makes the burial-place a cultivated
garden, was excluded by the rigid spiritualism of the
Puritan life, which, ever jealous of that which concerned the
body, lest it should claim what belonged to the immortal
alone, had frowned on all watching of graves, as an earthward
tendency, and enjoined the flight of faith with the
spirit, rather than the yearning for its cast-off garments.
But Sally Kittridge being lonely, found something in her
heart which could only be comforted by visits to that grave.
So she had planted there roses and trailing myrtle, and
tended and watered them; a proceeding which was much
commented on Sunday noons, when people were eating
their dinners and discussing their neighbors.
It is possible good Mrs. Kittridge might have been much
scandalized by it, had she been in a condition to think on
the matter at all; but a very short time after the funeral
she was seized with a paralytic shock, which left her for a
while as helpless as an infant; and then she sank away into
the grave, leaving Sally the sole care of the old Captain.
A cheerful home she made, too, for his old age, adorning
the house with many little tasteful fancies unknown in her
mother's days; reading the Bible to him and singing Mara's
favorite hymns, with a voice as sweet as the spring blue-bird.
The spirit of the departed friend seemed to hallow the
dwelling where these two worshipped her memory, in simple-hearted
love. Her paintings, framed in quaint woodland
frames of moss and pine-cones by Sally's own ingenuity,
adorned the walls. Her books were on the table, and among
them many that she had given to Moses.
“I am going to be a wanderer for many years,” he said
in parting, “keep these for me until I come back.”
And so from time to time passed long letters between the
two friends, — each telling to the other the same story, — that
they were lonely, and that their hearts yearned for the communion
of one who could no longer be manifest to the senses.
And each spoke to the other of a world of hopes and memories
buried with her, “Which,” each so constantly said, “no
one could understand but you.” Each, too, was firm in the
faith that buried love must have no earthly resurrection.
Every letter strenuously insisted that they should call each
other brother and sister, and under cover of those names
the letters grew longer and more frequent, and with every
chance opportunity came presents from the absent brother,
which made the little old cottage quaintly suggestive with
smell of spice and sandal-wood.
But, as we said, this is a glorious July evening, — and
you may discern two figures picking their way over those
low sunken rocks, yellowed with sea-weed, of which we have
often spoken. They are Moses and Sally going on an evening
walk to that favorite grotto retreat, which has so often
been spoken of in the course of this history.
Moses has come home from long wanderings. It is four
years since they parted, and now they meet and have looked
into each other's eyes, not as of old, when they met in the first
giddy flush of youth, but as fully developed man and woman.
Moses and Sally had just risen from the tea-table where she
had presided with a thoughtful housewifery gravity, just pleasantly
dashed with quaint streaks of her old merry wilfulness,
while the old Captain, warmed up like a rheumatic grasshopper
in a fine autumn day, chirrupted feebly, and told
some of his old stories, which now he told every day, forgetting
that they had ever been heard before. Somehow all
three had been very happy; the more so, from a shadowy
sense of some sympathizing presence which was rejoicing to
see them together again, and which, stealing soft-footed and
noiseless everywhere, touched and lighted up every old familiar
object with sweet memories.
And so they had gone out together to walk; to walk towards
the grotto where Sally had caused a seat to be made,
and where she declared she had passed hours and hours,
knitting, sewing, or reading.
“Sally,” said Moses, “do you know I am tired of wandering?
I am coming home now. I begin to want a home of
my own.” This he said as they sat together on the rustic
seat and looked off on the blue sea.
“Yes, you must,” said Sally. “How lonely that ship
looks, just coming in there.”
“Yes, they are beautiful,” said Moses abstractedly; and
Sally rattled on about the difference between sloops and
brigs; seeming determined that there should be no silence,
such as often comes in ominous gaps between two friends
who have long been separated, and have each many things
to say with which the other is not familiar.
“Sally!” said Moses, breaking in with a deep voice on
one of these monologues. “Do you remember some presumptuous
things I once said to you, in this place?”
Sally did not answer, and there was a dead silence in which
they could hear the tide gently dashing on the weedy rocks.
“You and I are neither of us what we were then, Sally,”
said Moses. “We are as different as if we were each
another person. We have been trained in another life, —
educated by a great sorrow, — is it not so?”
“I know it,” said Sally.
“And why should we two, who have a world of thoughts
and memories which no one can understand but the other, —
why should we, each of us, go on alone? If we must, why
then, Sally, I must leave you, and I must write and receive
no more letters, for I have found that you are becoming so
wholly necessary to me, that if any other should claim you,
I could not feel as I ought. Must I go?”
Sally's answer is not on record; but one infers what it was
from the fact that they sat there very late, and before they
knew it, the tide rose up and shut them in, and the moon
rose up in full glory out of the water, and still they sat and
talked, leaning on each other, till a cracked, feeble voice
called down through the pine-trees above, like a hoarse
old cricket, —
“Children, be you there?”
“Yes, father,” said Sally, blushing and conscious.
“Yes, all right,” said the deep bass of Moses. “I 'll bring
her back when I 've done with her, Captain.”
“Wal', — wal'; I was gettin' consarned; but I see I don't
need to. I hope you won't get no colds nor nothin'.”
They did not; but in the course of a month there was a
wedding at the brown house of the old Captain, which everybody
in the parish was glad of, and was voted without dissent
to be just the thing.
Miss Roxy, grimly approbative, presided over the preparations,
and all the characters of our story appeared, and
more, having on their wedding-garments. Nor was the
wedding less joyful, that all felt the presence of a heavenly
guest, silent and loving, seeing and blessing all, whose voice
seemed to say in every heart, —
“He turneth the shadow of death into morning.”
THE END.
