 | Beauty and the beast |  |
FRIEND ELI'S DAUGHTER.
1. I.
THE mild May afternoon was drawing
to a close, as Friend Eli Mitchenor
reached the top of the long
hill, and halted a few minutes, to
allow his horse time to recover
breath. He also heaved a sigh of
satisfaction, as he saw again the green, undulating valley
of the Neshaminy, with its dazzling squares of
young wheat, its brown patches of corn-land, its snowy
masses of blooming orchard, and the huge, fountainlike
jets of weeping willow, half concealing the gray
stone fronts of the farm-houses. He had been absent
from home only six days, but the time seemed almost
as long to him as a three years' cruise to a New Bedford
whaleman. The peaceful seclusion and pastoral beauty
of the scene did not consciously appeal to his senses; but
he quietly noted how much the wheat had grown during
his absence, that the oats were up and looking well, that
Friend Comly's meadow had been ploughed, and Friend
Martin had built his half of the line-fence along the top
of the hill-field. If any smothered delight in the loveliness
well-ordered chambers of his heart, it never relaxed or
softened the straight, inflexible lines of his face. As easily
could his collarless drab coat and waistcoat have
flushed with a sudden gleam of purple or crimson.
Eli Mitchenor was at peace with himself and the
world—that is, so much of the world as he acknowledged.
Beyond the community of his own sect, and
a few personal friends who were privileged to live
on its borders, he neither knew nor cared to know
much more of the human race than if it belonged to a
planet farther from the sun. In the discipline of the
Friends he was perfect; he was privileged to sit on the
high seats, with the elders of the Society; and the travelling
brethren from other States, who visited Bucks
County, invariably blessed his house with a family-meeting.
His farm was one of the best on the banks of the
Neshaminy, and he also enjoyed the annual interest of a
few thousand dollars, carefully secured by mortgages on
real estate. His wife, Abigail, kept even pace with him
in the consideration she enjoyed within the limits of the
sect; and his two children, Moses and Asenath, vindicated
the paternal training by the strictest sobriety of dress and
conduct. Moses wore the plain coat, even when his ways
led him among “the world's people;” and Asenath had
never been known to wear, or to express a desire for, a
ribbon of a brighter tint than brown or fawn-color. Friend
Mitchenor had thus gradually ripened to his sixtieth year
in an atmosphere of life utterly placid and serene, and
translation into a deeper calm, a serener quiet, a prosperous
eternity of mild voices, subdued colors, and suppressed
emotions.
He was returning home, in his own old-fashioned
“chair,” with its heavy square canopy and huge curved
springs, from the Yearly Meeting of the Hicksite Friends,
in Philadelphia. The large bay farm-horse, slow and
grave in his demeanor, wore his plain harness with an air
which made him seem, among his fellow-horses, the counterpart
of his master among men. He would no more
have thought of kicking than the latter would of swearing
a huge oath. Even now, when the top of the hill was
gained, and he knew that he was within a mile of the stable
which had been his home since colthood, he showed
no undue haste or impatience, but waited quietly, until
Friend Mitchenor, by a well-known jerk of the lines, gave
him the signal to go on. Obedient to the motion, he thereupon
set forward once more, jogging soberly down the
eastern slope of the hill,—across the covered bridge,
where, in spite of the tempting level of the hollow-sounding
floor, he was as careful to abstain from trotting as if
he had read the warning notice,—along the wooded edge
of the green meadow, where several cows of his acquaintance
were grazing,—and finally, wheeling around at the
proper angle, halted squarely in front of the gate which
gave entrance to the private lane.
The old stone house in front, the spring-house in a
green little hollow just below it, the walled garden, with
all joining in expressing a silent welcome to their owner,
as he drove up the lane. Moses, a man of twenty-five,
left his work in the garden, and walked forward in his
shirt-sleeves.
“Well, father, how does thee do?” was his quiet greeting,
as they shook hands.
“How's mother, by this time?” asked Eli.
“Oh, thee needn't have been concerned,” said the son.
“There she is. Go in: I'll tend to the horse.”
Abigail and her daughter appeared on the piazza. The
mother was a woman of fifty, thin and delicate in frame,
but with a smooth, placid beauty of countenance which had
survived her youth. She was dressed in a simple dove-colored
gown, with book-muslin cap and handkerchief, so
scrupulously arranged that one might have associated with
her for six months without ever discovering a spot on the
former, or an uneven fold in the latter. Asenath, who followed,
was almost as plainly attired, her dress being a
dark-blue calico, while a white pasteboard sun-bonnet, with
broad cape, covered her head.
“Well, Abigail, how art thou?” said Eli, quietly giving
his hand to his wife.
“I'm glad to see thee back,” was her simple welcome.
No doubt they had kissed each other as lovers, but
Asenath had witnessed this manifestation of affection but
once in her life—after the burial of a younger sister. The
fact impressed her with a peculiar sense of sanctity and
solemnity: it was a caress wrung forth by a season of tribulation,
the uses of joy. So far, therefore, from expecting a paternal
embrace, she would have felt, had it been given,
like the doomed daughter of the Gileadite, consecrated to
sacrifice.
Both she and her mother were anxious to hear the proceedings
of the meeting, and to receive personal news of
the many friends whom Eli had seen; but they asked few
questions until the supper-table was ready and Moses had
come in from the barn. The old man enjoyed talking,
but it must be in his own way and at his own good time.
They must wait until the communicative spirit should
move him. With the first cup of coffee the inspiration
came. Hovering at first over indifferent details, he gradually
approached those of more importance,—told of the addresses
which had been made, the points of discipline discussed,
the testimony borne, and the appearance and genealogy
of any new Friends who had taken a prominent part
therein. Finally, at the close of his relation, he said—
“Abigail, there is one thing I must talk to thee about.
Friend Speakman's partner,—perhaps thee's heard of him,
Richard Hilton,—has a son who is weakly. He's two or
three years younger than Moses. His mother was consumptive,
and they're afraid he takes after her. His father
wants to send him into the country for the summer—to
some place where he'll have good air, and quiet, and moderate
exercise, and Friend Speakman spoke of us. I thought
I'd mention it to thee, and if thee thinks well of it, we can
send word down next week, when Josiah Comly goes.”
“What does thee think?” asked his wife, after a pause.
“He's a very quiet, steady young man, Friend Speakman
says, and would be very little trouble to thee. I
thought perhaps his board would buy the new yoke of
oxen we must have in the fall, and the price of the fat
ones might go to help set up Moses. But it's for thee to
decide.”
“I suppose we could take him,” said Abigail, seeing
that the decision was virtually made already; “there's the
corner room, which we don't often use. Only, if he should
get worse on our hands—”
“Friend Speakman says there's no danger. He is
only weak-breasted, as yet, and clerking isn't good for
him. I saw the young man at the store. If his looks
don't belie him, he's well-behaved and orderly.”
So it was settled that Richard Hilton the younger was
to be an inmate of Friend Mitchenor's house during the
summer.
2. II.
At the end of ten days he came.
In the under-sized, earnest, dark-haired and dark-eyed
young man of three-and-twenty, Abigail Mitchenor at
once felt a motherly interest. Having received him as a
temporary member of the family, she considered him entitled
to the same watchful care as if he were in reality an
invalid son. The ice over an hereditary Quaker nature
is but a thin crust, if one knows how to break it; and in
His only embarrassment, in fact, arose from the
difficulty which he naturally experienced in adapting himself
to the speech and address of the Mitchenor family.
The greetings of old Eli, grave, yet kindly, of Abigail,
quaintly familiar and tender, of Moses, cordial and slightly
condescending, and finally of Asenath, simple and natural
to a degree which impressed him like a new revelation
in woman, at once indicated to him his position among
them. His city manners, he felt, instinctively, must be
unlearned, or at least laid aside for a time. Yet it was
not easy for him to assume, at such short notice, those
of his hosts. Happening to address Asenath as “Miss
Mitchenor,” Eli turned to him with a rebuking face.
“We do not use compliments, Richard,” said he; “my
daughter's name is Asenath.
“I beg pardon. I will try to accustom myself to your
ways, since you have been so kind as to take me for a
while,” apologized Richard Hilton.
“Thee's under no obligation to us,” said Friend Mitchenor,
in his strict sense of justice; “thee pays for what
thee gets.”
The finer feminine instinct of Abigail led her to interpose.
“We'll not expect too much of thee, at first, Richard,”
she remarked, with a kind expression of face, which had
the effect of a smile: “but our ways are plain and easily
learned. Thee knows, perhaps, that we're no respecters
of persons.”
It was some days, however, before the young man
could overcome his natural hesitation at the familiarity
implied by these new forms of speech. “Friend Mitchenor”
and “Moses” were not difficult to learn, but it
seemed a want of respect to address as “Abigail” a woman
of such sweet and serene dignity as the mother, and
he was fain to avoid either extreme by calling her, with her
cheerful permission, “Aunt Mitchenor.” On the other
hand, his own modest and unobtrusive nature soon won
the confidence and cordial regard of the family. He occasionally
busied himself in the garden, by way of exercise,
or accompanied Moses to the corn-field or the woodland
on the hill, but was careful never to interfere at inopportune
times, and willing to learn silently, by the simple
process of looking on.
One afternoon, as he was idly sitting on the stone wall
which separated the garden from the lane, Asenath, attired
in a new gown of chocolate-colored calico, with a double-handled
willow work-basket on her arm, issued from
the house. As she approached him, she paused and
said—
“The time seems to hang heavy on thy hands, Richard.
If thee's strong enough to walk to the village and
back, it might do thee more good than sitting still.”
Richard Hilton at once jumped down from the wall.
“Certainly I am able to go,” said he, “if you will allow
it.”
“Haven't I asked thee?” was her quiet reply.
“Let me carry your basket,” he said, suddenly, after
lane.
“Indeed, I shall not let thee do that. I'm only going
for the mail, and some little things at the store, that make
no weight at all. Thee mustn't think I'm like the young
women in the city, who, I'm told, if they buy a spool of
cotton, must have it sent home to them. Besides, thee
mustn't over-exert thy strength.”
Richard Hilton laughed merrily at the gravity with
which she uttered the last sentence.
“Why, Miss—Asenath, I mean—what am I good for;
if I have not strength enough to carry a basket?”
“Thee's a man, I know, and I think a man would almost
as lief be thought wicked as weak. Thee can't help
being weakly-inclined, and it's only right that thee should
be careful of thyself. There's surely nothing in that that
thee need be ashamed of.”
While thus speaking, Asenath moderated her walk, in
order, unconsciously to her companion, to restrain his
steps.
“Oh, there are the dog's-tooth violets in blossom?”
she exclaimed, pointing to a shady spot beside the brook;
“does thee know them?”
Richard immediately gathered and brought to her a
handful of the nodding yellow bells, trembling above their
large, cool, spotted leaves.
“How beautiful they are!” said he; “but I should
never have taken them for violets.”
“They are misnamed,” she answered. “The flower is
name, and like it. Did thee ever study botany?”
“Not at all. I can tell a geranium, when I see it,
and I know a heliotrope by the smell. I could never mistake
a red cabbage for a rose, and I can recognize a hollyhock
or a sunflower at a considerable distance. The
wild flowers are all strangers to me; I wish I knew something
about them.”
“If thee's fond of flowers, it would be very easy to
learn. I think a study of this kind would pleasantly occupy
thy mind. Why couldn't thee try? I would be very
willing to teach thee what little I know. It's not much,
indeed, but all thee wants is a start. See, I will show
thee how simple the principles are.”
Taking one of the flowers from the bunch, Asenath,
as they slowly walked forward, proceeded to dissect it,
explained the mysteries of stamens and pistils, pollen,
petals, and calyx, and, by the time they had reached the
village, had succeeded in giving him a general idea of
the Linnæan system of classification. His mind took
hold of the subject with a prompt and profound interest.
It was a new and wonderful world which suddenly opened
before him. How surprised he was to learn that there
were signs by which a poisonous herb could be detected
from a wholesome one, that cedars and pine-trees blossomed,
that the gray lichens on the rocks belonged to the
vegetable kingdom! His respect for Asenath's knowledge
thrust quite out of sight the restraint which her youth and
sex had imposed upon him. She was teacher, equal,
natural expression of her dignity and purity thoroughly
harmonized with this relation.
Although, in reality, two or three years younger than
he, Asenath had a gravity of demeanor, a calm self-possession,
a deliberate balance of mind, and a repose of
the emotional nature, which he had never before observed,
except in much older women. She had had, as
he could well imagine, no romping girlhood, no season
of careless, light-hearted dalliance with opening life, no
violent alternation even of the usual griefs and joys of
youth. The social calm in which she had expanded had
developed her nature as gently and securely as a seaflower
is unfolded below the reach of tides and
storms.
She would have been very much surprised if any one
had called her handsome: yet her face had a mild, unobtrusive
beauty which seemed to grow and deepen from
day to day. Of a longer oval than the Greek standard,
it was yet as harmonious in outline; the nose was fine
and straight, the dark-blue eyes steady and untroubled,
and the lips calmly, but not too firmly closed. Her brown
hair, parted over a high white forehead, was smoothly
laid across the temples, drawn behind the ears, and
twisted into a simple knot. The white cape and sun-bonnet
gave her face a nun-like character, which set her
apart, in the thoughts of “the world's people” whom she
met, as one sanctified for some holy work. She might
have gone around the world, repelling every rude word,
and truth which inclosed her.
The days went by, each bringing some new blossom
to adorn and illustrate the joint studies of the young man
and maiden. For Richard Hilton had soon mastered
the elements of botany, as taught by Priscilla Wakefield,
—the only source of Asenath's knowledge,—and entered,
with her, upon the text-book of Gray, a copy of which he
procured from Philadelphia. Yet, though he had overtaken
her in his knowledge of the technicalities of the
science, her practical acquaintance with plants and their
habits left her still his superior. Day by day, exploring
the meadows, the woods, and the clearings, he brought
home his discoveries to enjoy her aid in classifying and
assigning them to their true places. Asenath had generally
an hour or two of leisure from domestic duties in
the afternoons, or after the early supper of summer was
over; and sometimes, on “Seventh-days,” she would be
his guide to some locality where the rarer plants were
known to exist. The parents saw this community of interest
and exploration without a thought of misgiving.
They trusted their daughter as themselves; or, if any
possible fear had flitted across their hearts, it was allayed
by the absorbing delight with which Richard Hilton pursued
his study. An earnest discussion as to whether a
certain leaf was ovate or lanceolate, whether a certain
plant belonged to the species scandens or canadensis, was,
in their eyes, convincing proof that the young brains were
touched, and therefore not the young hearts.
But love, symbolized by a rose-bud, is emphatically a
botanical emotion. A sweet, tender perception of beauty,
such as this study requires, or develops, is at once the
most subtile and certain chain of communication between
impressible natures. Richard Hilton, feeling that his
years were numbered, had given up, in despair, his boyish
dreams, even before he understood them: his fate
seemed to preclude the possibility of love. But, as he
gained a little strength from the genial season, the pure
country air, and the release from gloomy thoughts which
his rambles afforded, the end was farther removed, and a
future—though brief, perhaps, still a future—began to
glimmer before him. If this could be his life,—an endless
summer, with a search for new plants every morning,
and their classification every evening, with Asenath's help
on the shady portico of Friend Mitchenor's house,—he
could forget his doom, and enjoy the blessing of life unthinkingly.
The azaleas succeeded to the anemones, the orchis
and trillium followed, then the yellow gerardias and the
feathery purple pogonias, and finally the growing gleam
of the golden-rods along the wood-side and the red umbels
of the tall eupatoriums in the meadow announced
the close of summer. One evening, as Richard, in displaying
his collection, brought to view the blood-red leaf
of a gum-tree, Asenath exclaimed—
“Ah, there is the sign! It is early, this year.”
“What sign?” he asked.
“That the summer is over. We shall soon have
the asters and gentians and golden-rods.”
Was the time indeed so near? A few more weeks,
and this Arcadian life would close. He must go back to
the city, to its rectilinear streets, its close brick walls, its
artificial, constrained existence. How could he give up
the peace, the contentment, the hope he had enjoyed
through the summer? The question suddenly took a
more definite form in his mind: How could he give up
Asenath? Yes—the quiet, unsuspecting girl, sitting beside
him, with her lap full of the September blooms he
had gathered, was thenceforth a part of his inmost life.
Pure and beautiful as she was, almost sacred in his regard,
his heart dared to say—“I need her and claim
her!”
“Thee looks pale to-night, Richard,” said Abigail,
as they took their seats at the supper-table. “I hope
thee has not taken cold.”
3. III.
“Will thee go along, Richard? I know where the
rudbeckias grow,” said Asenath, on the following
“Seventh-day” afternoon.
They crossed the meadows, and followed the course
of the stream, under its canopy of magnificent ash and
plane trees, into a brake between the hills. It was an almost
impenetrable thicket, spangled with tall autumnal
flowers. The eupatoriums, with their purple crowns,
blue spikes of lobelia, tangled in a golden mesh of dodder.
A strong, mature odor, mixed alike of leaves and
flowers, and very different from the faint, elusive sweetness
of spring, filled the air. The creek, with a few faded
leaves dropped upon its bosom, and films of gossamer
streaming from its bushy fringe, gurgled over the pebbles
in its bed. Here and there, on its banks, shone the deep
yellow stars of the flower they sought.
Richard Hilton walked as in a dream, mechanically
plucking a stem of rudbeckia, only to toss it, presently,
into the water.
“Why, Richard! what's thee doing?” cried Asenath;
“thee has thrown away the very best specimen.”
“Let it go,” he answered, sadly. “I am afraid everything
else is thrown away.”
“What does thee mean?” she asked, with a look of
surprised and anxious inquiry.
“Don't ask me, Asenath. Or—yes, I will tell you.
I must say it to you now, or never afterwards. Do you
know what a happy life I've been leading since I came
here?—that I've learned what life is, as if I'd never known
it before? I want to live, Asenath,—and do you know
why?”
“I hope thee will live, Richard,” she said, gently and
tenderly, her deep-blue eyes dim with the mist of unshed
tears.
“But, Asenath, how am I to live without you? But
you can't understand that, because you do not know what
I've been loving you more and more, until now I have no
other idea of death than not to see you, not to love you,
not to share your life!”
“Oh, Richard!”
“I knew you would be shocked, Asenath. I meant
to have kept this to myself. You never dreamed of it,
and I had no right to disturb the peace of your heart.
The truth is told now,—and I cannot take it back, if I
wished. But if you cannot love, you can forgive me for
loving you—forgive me now and every day of my life.”
He uttered these words with a passionate tenderness,
standing on the edge of the stream, and gazing into its
waters. His slight frame trembled with the violence of
his emotion. Asenath, who had become very pale as he
commenced to speak, gradually flushed over neck and
brow as she listened. Her head drooped, the gathered
flowers fell from her hands, and she hid her face. For a
few minutes no sound was heard but the liquid gurgling
of the water, and the whistle of a bird in the thicket beside
them. Richard Hilton at last turned, and, in a voice
of hesitating entreaty, pronounced her name—
“Asenath!”
She took away her hands, and slowly lifted her face.
She was pale, but her eyes met his with a frank, appealing,
tender expression, which caused his heart to stand still a
moment. He read no reproach, no faintest thought of
blame; but—was it pity?—was it pardon?—or—
“We stand before God, Richard,” said she, in a low,
forgive thee. If thee requires it, I also require His forgiveness
for myself.”
Though a deeper blush now came to cheek and brow,
she met his gaze with the bravery of a pure and innocent
heart. Richard, stunned with the sudden and unexpected
bliss, strove to take the full consciousness of it into a being
which seemed too narrow to contain it. His first impulse
was to rush forward, clasp her passionately in his
arms, and hold her in the embrace which encircled, for
him, the boundless promise of life; but she stood there,
defenceless, save in her holy truth and trust, and his heart
bowed down and gave her reverence.
“Asenath,” said he, at last, “I never dared to hope
for this. God bless you for those words! Can you trust
me?—can you indeed love me?”
“I can trust thee,—I do love thee!”
They clasped each other's hands in one long, clinging
pressure. No kiss was given, but side by side they walked
slowly up the dewy meadows, in happy and hallowed
silence. Asenath's face became troubled as the old farm-house
appeared through the trees.
“Father and mother must know of this, Richard,” said
she. “I am afraid it may be a cross to them.”
The same fear had already visited his own mind, but
he answered, cheerfully—
“I hope not. I think I have taken a new lease of
life, and shall soon be strong enough to satisfy them.
Besides, my father is in prosperous business.”
“It is not that,” she answered; “but thee is not one
of us.”
It was growing dusk when they reached the house.
In the dim candle-light Asenath's paleness was not remarked;
and Richard's silence was attributed to fatigue.
The next morning the whole family attended meeting
at the neighboring Quaker meeting-house, in the preparation
for which, and the various special occupations of
their “First-day” mornings, the unsuspecting parents
overlooked that inevitable change in the faces of the lovers
which they must otherwise have observed. After dinner,
as Eli was taking a quiet walk in the garden, Rich
ard Hilton approached him.
“Friend Mitchenor,” said he, “I should like to have
some talk with thee.”
“What is it, Richard?” asked the old man, breaking
off some pods from a seedling radish, and rubbing them
in the palm of his hand.
“I hope, Friend Mitchenor,” said the young man,
scarcely knowing how to approach so important a crisis
in his life, “I hope thee has been satisfied with my conduct
since I came to live with thee, and has no fault to
find with me as a man.”
“Well,” exclaimed Eli, turning around and looking
up, sharply, “does thee want a testimony from me? I've
nothing, that I know of, to say against thee.”
“If I were sincerely attached to thy daughter, Friend
Mitchenor, and she returned the attachment, could thee
trust her happiness in my hands?”
“What!” cried Eli, straightening himself and glaring
upon the speaker, with a face too amazed to express any
other feeling.
“Can you confide Asenath's happiness to my care?
I love her with my whole heart and soul and the fortune
of my life depends on your answer.”
The straight lines in the old man's face seemed to grow
deeper and more rigid, and his eyes shone with the chill
glitter of steel. Richard, not daring to say a word more,
awaited his reply in intense agitation.
“So!” he exclaimed at last, “this is the way thee's
repaid me! I didn't expect this from thee! Has thee
spoken to her?”
“I have.”
“Thee has, has thee? And I suppose thee's persuaded
her to think as thee does. Thee'd better never have
come here. When I want to lose my daughter, and can't
find anybody else for her, I'll let thee know.”
“What have you against me, Friend Mitchenor?”
Richard sadly asked, forgetting, in his excitement, the
Quaker speech he had learned.
“Thee needn't use compliments now! Asenath shall
be a Friend while I live; thy fine clothes and merry-makings
and vanities are not for her. Thee belongs to the
world, and thee may choose one of the world's women.”
“Never!” protested Richard; but Friend Mitchenor
was already ascending the garden-steps on his way to the
house.
The young man, utterly overwhelmed, wandered to
Thus, in a miserable chaos of emotion, unable to grasp
any fixed thought, the hours passed away. Towards evening,
he heard a footstep approaching, and sprang up. It
was Moses.
The latter was engaged, with the consent of his parents
and expected to “pass meeting” in a few weeks. He
knew what had happened, and felt a sincere sympathy for
Richard, for whom he had a cordial regard. His face was
very grave, but kind.
“Thee'd better come in, Richard,” said he; “the evenings
are damp, and I v'e brought thy overcoat. I know
everything, and I feel that it must be a great cross for
thee. But thee won't be alone in bearing it.”
“Do you think there is no hope of your father relenting?”
he asked, in a tone of despondency which anticipated
the answer.
“Father's very hard to move,” said Moses; “and
when mother and Asenath can't prevail on him, nobody
else need try. I'm afraid thee must make up thy mind
to the trial. I'm sorry to say it, Richard, but I think
thee'd better go back to town.”
“I'll go to-morrow,—go and die!” he muttered
hoarsely, as he followed Moses to the house.
Abigail, as she saw his haggard face, wept quietly.
She pressed his hand tenderly, but said nothing. Eli
was stern and cold as an Iceland rock. Asenath did not
make her appearance. At supper, the old man and his
son exchanged a few words about the farm-work to be
soon left the room and went up to his chamber to spend
his last, his only unhappy night at the farm. A yearning,
pitying look from Abigail accompanied him.
“Try and not think hard of us!” was her farewell
the next morning, as he stepped into the old chair,
in which Moses was to convey him to the village where
he should meet the Doylestown stage. So, without a
word of comfort from Asenath's lips, without even a last
look at her beloved face, he was taken away.
4. IV.
True and firm and self-reliant as was the nature of
Asenath Mitchenor, the thought of resistance to her
father's will never crossed her mind. It was fixed that
she must renounce all intercourse with Richard Hilton;
it was even sternly forbidden her to see him again during
the few hours he remained in the house; but the sacred
love, thus rudely dragged to the light and outraged, was
still her own. She would take it back into the keeping
of her heart, and if a day should ever come when he
would be free to return and demand it of her, he would
find it there, unwithered, with all the unbreathed perfume
hoarded in its folded leaves. If that day came not, she
would at the last give it back to God, saying, “Father,
here is Thy most precious gift, bestow it as Thou wilt.”
As her life had never before been agitated by any
strong emotion, so it was not outwardly agitated now.
before those winds of passion and sorrow: they lay in
dull, leaden calm, under a cold and sunless sky. What
struggles with herself she underwent no one ever knew.
After Richard Hilton's departure, she never mentioned
his name, or referred, in any way, to the summer's companionship
with him. She performed her household duties,
if not cheerfully, at least as punctually and carefully
as before; and her father congratulated himself that the
unfortunate attachment had struck no deeper root. Abigail's
finer sight, however, was not deceived by this external
resignation. She noted the faint shadows under the
eyes, the increased whiteness of the temples, the unconscious
traces of pain which sometimes played about the
dimpled corners of the mouth, and watched her daughter
with a silent, tender solicitude.
The wedding of Moses was a severe test of Asenath's
strength, but she stood the trial nobly, performing all the
duties required by her position with such sweet composure
that many of the older female Friends remarked to
Abigail, “How womanly Asenath has grown!” Eli
Mitchenor noted, with peculiar satisfaction, that the eyes of
the young Friends—some of them of great promise in the
sect, and well endowed with worldly goods—followed her
admiringly. “It will not be long,” he thought, “before
she is consoled.”
Fortune seemed to favor his plans, and justify his
harsh treatment of Richard Hilton. There were unfavorable
accounts of the young man's conduct. His father
having become very reckless and dissipated. These reports
at last assumed such a definite form that Friend
Mitchenor brought them to the notice of his family.
“I met Josiah Comly in the road,” said he, one day
at dinner. “He's just come from Philadelphia, and
brings bad news of Richard Hilton. He's taken to drink,
and is spending in wickedness the money his father left
him. His friends have a great concern about him, but it
seems he's not to be reclaimed.”
Abigail looked imploringly at her husband, but he
either disregarded or failed to understand her look. Asenath,
who had grown very pale, steadily met her father's
gaze, and said, in a tone which he had never yet heard
from her lips—
“Father, will thee please never mention Richard Hilton's
name when I am by?”
The words were those of entreaty, but the voice was
that of authority. The old man was silenced by a new
and unexpected power in his daughter's heart: he suddenly
felt that she was not a girl, as heretofore, but a
woman, whom he might persuade, but could no longer
compel.
“It shall be as thee wishes, Asenath,” he said; “we
had best forget him.”
Of their friends, however, she could not expect this
reserve, and she was doomed to hear stories of Richard
which clouded and embittered her thoughts of him. And
a still severer trial was in store. She accompanied her
to the Yearly Meeting in Philadelphia. It has
passed into a proverb that the Friends, on these occasions,
always bring rain with them; and the period of her
visit was no exception to the rule. The showery days of
“Yearly Meeting Week” glided by, until the last, and she
looked forward with relief to the morrow's return to
Bucks County, glad to have escaped a meeting with
Richard Hilton, which might have confirmed her fears
and could but have given her pain in any case.
As she and her father joined each other, outside the
meeting-house, at the close of the afternoon meeting, a
light rain was falling. She took his arm, under the capacious
umbrella, and they were soon alone in the wet
streets, on their way to the house of the Friends who entertained
them. At a crossing, where the water pouring
down the gutter towards the Delaware, caused them to
halt, a man, plashing through the flood, staggered towards
them. Without an umbrella, with dripping, disordered
clothes, yet with a hot, flushed face, around which the
long black hair hung wildly, he approached, singing to
himself with maudlin voice a song that would have been
sweet and tender in a lover's mouth. Friend Mitchenor
drew to one side, lest his spotless drab should be brushed
by the unclean reveller; but the latter, looking up, stopped
suddenly face to face with them.
“Asenath!” he cried, in a voice whose anguish
pierced through the confusion of his senses, and struck
down into the sober quick of his soul.
“Richard!” she breathed, rather than spoke, in a low,
terrified voice.
It was indeed Richard Hilton who stood before her,
or rather—as she afterwards thought, in recalling the interview—the
body of Richard Hilton possessed by an
evil spirit. His cheeks burned with a more than hectic
red, his eyes were wild and bloodshot, and though the
recognition had suddenly sobered him, an impatient,
reckless devil seemed to lurk under the set mask of his
features.
“Here I am, Asenath,” he said at length, hoarsely.
“I said it was death, didn't I? Well, it's worse than
death, I suppose; but what matter? You can't be more
lost to me now than you were already. This is thy doing,
Friend Eli,” he continued, turning to the old man, with a
sneering emphasis on the “thy.” “I hope thee's satisfied
with thy work!”
Here he burst into a bitter, mocking laugh, which it
chilled Asenath's blood to hear.
The old man turned pale. “Come away, child!” said
he, tugging at her arm. But she stood firm, strengthened
for the moment by a solemn feeling of duty which trampled
down her pain.
“Richard,” she said, with the music of an immeasurable
sorrow in her voice, “oh, Richard, what has thee
done? Where the Lord commands resignation, thee has
been rebellious; where he chasteneth to purify, thee turns
blindly to sin. I had not expected this of thee, Richard;
I thought thy regard for me was of the kind which would
unworthy object, but through the hopes and the pure desires
of thy own heart. I expected that thee would so
act as to justify what I felt towards thee, not to make my
affection a reproach,—oh, Richard, not to cast over my
heart the shadow of thy sin!”
The wretched young man supported himself against
the post of an awning, buried his face in his hands, and
wept passionately. Once or twice he essayed to speak,
but his voice was choked by sobs, and, after a look from
the streaming eyes which Asenath could scarcely bear to
meet, he again covered his face. A stranger, coming
down the street, paused out of curiosity. “Come, come!”
cried Eli, once more, eager to escape from the scene.
His daughter stood still, and the man slowly passed on.
Asenath could not thus leave her lost lover, in his despairing
grief. She again turned to him, her own tears
flowing fast and free.
“I do not judge thee, Richard, but the words that
passed between us give me a right to speak to thee. It
was hard to lose sight of thee then, but it is still
harder for me to see thee now. If the sorrow and pity I
feel could save thee, I would be willing never to know any
other feelings. I would still do anything for thee except
that which thee cannot ask, as thee now is, and I could
not give. Thee has made the gulf between us so wide
that it cannot be crossed. But I can now weep for thee
and pray for thee as a fellow-creature whose soul is still
precious in the sight of the Lord. Fare thee well!”
He seized the hand she extended, bowed down, and
showered mingled tears and kisses upon it. Then, with a
wild sob in his throat, he started up and rushed down the
street, through the fast-falling rain. The father and
daughter walked home in silence. Eli had heard every
word that was spoken, and felt that a spirit whose utterances
he dared not question had visited Asenath's tongue.
She, as year after year went by, regained the peace
and patience which give a sober cheerfulness to life. The
pangs of her heart grew dull and transient; but there were
two pictures in her memory which never blurred in outline
or faded in color: one, the brake of autumn flowers
under the bright autumnal sky, with bird and stream making
accordant music to the new voice of love; the other
a rainy street, with a lost, reckless man leaning against an
awning-post, and staring in her face with eyes whose unutterable
woe, when she dared to recall it, darkened the
beauty of the earth, and almost shook her trust in the
providence of God.
5. V.
Year after year passed by, but not without bringing
change to the Mitchenor family. Moses had moved to
Chester County soon after his marriage, and had a good
farm of his own. At the end of ten years Abigail died;
and the old man, who had not only lost his savings by an
unlucky investment, but was obliged to mortgage his farm,
finally determined to sell it and join his son. He was
unaccustomed pressure of debt, and depressed by the loss
of the wife to whom, without any outward show of tenderness,
he was, in truth, tenderly attached. He missed her
more keenly in the places where she had lived and moved
than in a neighborhood without the memory of her presence.
The pang with which he parted from his home was weakened
by the greater pang which had preceded it.
It was a harder trial to Asenath. She shrank from
the encounter with new faces, and the necessity of creating
new associations. There was a quiet satisfaction in
the ordered, monotonous round of her life, which might
be the same elsewhere, but here alone was the nook which
held all the morning sunshine she had ever known. Here
still lingered the halo of the sweet departed summer,—
here still grew the familiar wild-flowers which the first
Richard Hilton had gathered. This was the Paradise in
which the Adam of her heart had dwelt, before his fall.
Her resignation and submission entitled her to keep those
pure and perfect memories, though she was scarcely conscious
of their true charm. She did not dare to express
to herself, in words, that one everlasting joy of woman's
heart, through all trials and sorrows—“I have loved, I
have been beloved.”
On the last “First-day” before their departure, she
walked down the meadows to the lonely brake between
the hills. It was the early spring, and the black buds of
the ash had just begun to swell. The maples were dusted
with crimson bloom, and the downy catkins of the swamp-willow
once the autumn leaves. In the edges of the thickets
peeped forth the blue, scentless violet, the fairy cups of
the anemone, and the pink-veined bells of the miskodeed.
The tall blooms through which the lovers walked still
slept in the chilly earth; but the sky above her was mild
and blue, and the remembrance of the day came back to
her with a delicate, pungent sweetness, like the perfume
of the trailing arbutus in the air around her. In a sheltered,
sunny nook, she found a single erythronium, lured
forth in advance of its proper season, and gathered it as a
relic of the spot, which she might keep without blame.
As she stooped to pluck it, her own face looked up at her
out of a little pool filled by the spring rains. Seen against
the reflected sky, it shone with a soft radiance, and the
earnest eyes met hers, as if it were her young self, evoked
from the past, to bid her farewell. “Farewell!” she
whispered, taking leave at once, as she believed, of youth
and the memory of love.
During those years she had more than once been
sought in marriage, but had steadily, though kindly, refused.
Once, when the suitor was a man whose character
and position made the union very desirable in Eli Mitchenor's
eyes, he ventured to use his paternal influence.
Asenath's gentle resistance was overborne by his arbitrary
force of will, and her protestations were of no avail.
“Father,” she finally said, in the tone which he had
once heard and still remembered, “thee can take away,
but thee cannot give.”
He never mentioned the subject again.
Richard Hilton passed out of her knowledge shortly
after her meeting with him in Philadelphia. She heard,
indeed, that his headlong career of dissipation was not
arrested,—that his friends had given him up as hopelessly
ruined,—and, finally, that he had left the city. After
that, all reports ceased. He was either dead, or reclaimed
and leading a better life, somewhere far away. Dead,
she believed—almost hoped; for in that case might he
not now be enjoying the ineffable rest and peace which
she trusted might be her portion? It was better to think
of him as a purified spirit, waiting to meet her in a holier
communion, than to know that he was still bearing the
burden of a soiled and blighted life. In any case, her
own future was plain and clear. It was simply a prolongation
of the present — an alternation of seed-time
and harvest, filled with humble duties and cares, until
the Master should bid her lay down her load and follow
Him.
Friend Mitchenor bought a small cottage adjacent to
his son's farm, in a community which consisted mostly of
Friends, and not far from the large old meeting-house in
which the Quarterly Meetings were held. He at once
took his place on the upper seat, among the elders, most
of whom he knew already, from having met them, year
after year, in Philadelphia. The charge of a few acres of
ground gave him sufficient occupation; the money left to
him after the sale of his farm was enough to support him
comfortably; and a late Indian summer of contentment
with the earnest business of life. Moses was gradually
taking his place, as father and Friend; and Asenath would
be reasonably provided for at his death. As his bodily
energies decayed, his imperious temper softened, his mind
became more accessible to liberal influences, and he even
cultivated a cordial friendship with a neighboring farmer
who was one of “the world's people.” Thus, at seventy-five
he was really younger, because tenderer of heart and more
considerate, than he had been at sixty.
Asenath was now a woman of thirty-five, and suitors
had ceased to approach her. Much of her beauty still
remained, but her face had become thin and wasted, and
the inevitable lines were beginning to form around her
eyes. Her dress was plainer than ever, and she wore the
scoop-bonnet of drab silk, in which no woman can seem
beautiful, unless she be very old. She was calm and grave
in her demeanor, save that her perfect goodness and benevolence
shone through and warmed her presence; but,
when earnestly interested, she had been known to speak her
mind so clearly and forcibly that it was generally surmised
among the Friends that she possessed “a gift,” which
might, in time, raise her to honor among them. To the
children of Moses she was a good genius, and a word from
“Aunt 'Senath” oftentimes prevailed when the authority
of the parents was disregarded. In them she found a new
source of happiness; and when her old home on the
Neshaminy had been removed a little farther into the past,
so that she no longer looked, with every morning's sun,
brightened into a cheerful content with life.
It was summer, and Quarterly-Meeting Day had arrived.
There had been rumors of the expected presence
of “Friends from a distance,” and not only those of the
district, but most of the neighbors who were not connected
with the sect, attended. By the by-road, through the
woods, it was not more than half a mile from Friend Mitchenor's
cottage to the meeting-house, and Asenath, leaving
her father to be taken by Moses in his carriage, set out
on foot. It was a sparkling, breezy day, and the forest
was full of life. Squirrels chased each other along the
branches of the oaks, and the air was filled with fragrant
odors of hickory-leaves, sweet fern, and spice-wood.
Picking up a flower here and there, Asenath walked onward,
rejoicing alike in shade and sunshine, grateful for
all the consoling beauty which the earth offers to a lonely
heart. That serene content which she had learned to call
happiness had filled her being until the dark canopy was
lifted and the waters took back their transparency under
a cloudless sky.
Passing around to the “women's side” of the meeting-house,
she mingled with her friends, who were exchanging
information concerning the expected visitors. Micajah Morrill
had not arrived, they said, but Ruth Baxter had spent
the last night at Friend Way's, and would certainly be
there. Besides, there were Friend Chandler, from Nine
Partners, and Friend Carter, from Maryland: they had
been seen on the ground. Friend Carter was said to have
Baltimore. The Friends there had been a little exercised
about him, because they thought he was too much inclined
to “the newness,” but it was known that the Spirit
had often manifestly led him. Friend Chandler had visited
Yearly Meeting once, they believed. He was an old
man, and had been a personal friend of Elias Hicks.
At the appointed hour they entered the house. After
the subdued rustling which ensued upon taking their seats,
there was an interval of silence, shorter than usual, because
it was evident that many persons would feel the
promptings of the Spirit. Friend Chandler spoke first,
and was followed by Ruth Baxter, a frail little woman,
with a voice of exceeding power. The not unmelodious
chant in which she delivered her admonitions rang out, at
times, like the peal of a trumpet. Fixing her eyes on vacancy,
with her hands on the wooden rail before her, and
her body slightly swaying to and fro, her voice soared far
aloft at the commencement of every sentence, gradually
dropping, through a melodious scale of tone, to the close.
She resembled an inspired prophetess, an aged Deborah,
crying aloud in the valleys of Israel.
The last speaker was Friend Carter, a small man, not
more than forty years of age. His face was thin and intense
in its expression, his hair gray at the temples,
and his dark eye almost too restless for a child of
“the stillness and the quietness.” His voice, though not
loud, was clear and penetrating, with an earnest, sympathetic
quality, which arrested, not the ear alone, but the
slightly marked by the peculiar rhythm of the Quaker
preachers; and this fact, perhaps, increased the effect of
his words, through the contrast with those who preceded
him.
His discourse was an eloquent vindication of the law
of kindness, as the highest and purest manifestation of
true Christian doctrine. The paternal relation of God to
man was the basis of that religion which appealed directly
to the heart: so the fraternity of each man with his fellow
was its practical application. God pardons the repentant
sinner: we can also pardon, where we are offended; we
can pity, where we cannot pardon. Both the good and
the bad principles generate their like in others. Force
begets force; anger excites a corresponding anger; but
kindness awakens the slumbering emotions even of an evil
heart. Love may not always be answered by an equal
love, but it has never yet created hatred. The testimony
which Friends bear against war, he said, is but a general
assertion, which has no value except in so far as they
manifest the principle of peace in their daily lives—in the
exercise of pity, of charity, of forbearance, and Christian
love.
The words of the speaker sank deeply into the hearts
of his hearers. There was an intense hush, as if in truth
the Spirit had moved him to speak, and every sentence
was armed with a sacred authority. Asenath Mitchenor
looked at him, over the low partition which divided her
and her sisters from the men's side, absorbed in his rapt
present: he spake to her alone. A strange spell seemed
to seize upon her faculties and chain them at his feet: had
he beckoned to her, she would have arisen and walked to
his side.
Friend Carter warmed and deepened as he went on.
“I feel moved to-day,” he said,—“moved, I know not
why, but I hope for some wise purpose,—to relate to you
an instance of Divine and human kindness which has come
directly to my own knowledge. A young man of delicate
constitution, whose lungs were thought to be seriously affected,
was sent to the house of a Friend in the country,
in order to try the effect of air and exercise.”
Asenath almost ceased to breathe, in the intensity with
which she gazed and listened. Clasping her hands tightly
in her lap to prevent them from trembling, and steadying
herself against the back of the seat, she heard the story
of her love for Richard Hilton told by the lips of a
stranger!—not merely of his dismissal from the house, but
of that meeting in the street, at which only she and her
father were present! Nay, more, she heard her own
words repeated, she heard Richard's passionate outburst
of remorse described in language that brought his living
face before her! She gasped for breath—his face was
before her! The features, sharpened by despairing grief,
which her memory recalled, had almost anticipated the
harder lines which fifteen years had made, and which now,
with a terrible shock and choking leap of the heart, she recognized.
Her senses faded, and she would have fallen
which she leaned. Fortunately, the women near her were
too much occupied with the narrative to notice her condition.
Many of them wept silently, with their handkerchiefs
pressed over their mouths.
The first shock of death-like faintness passed away,
and she clung to the speaker's voice, as if its sound alone
could give her strength to sit still and listen further.
“Deserted by his friends, unable to stay his feet on
the evil path,” he continued, “the young man left his
home and went to a city in another State. But here it
was easier to find associates in evil than tender hearts
that might help him back to good. He was tired of
life, and the hope of a speedier death hardened him in
his courses. But, my friends, Death never comes to
those who wickedly seek him. The Lord withholds destruction
from the hands that are madly outstretched to
grasp it, and forces His pity and forgiveness on the unwilling
soul. Finding that it was the principle of life
which grew stronger within him, the young man at last
meditated an awful crime. The thought of self-destruction
haunted him day and night. He lingered around
the wharves, gazing into the deep waters, and was restrained
from the deed only by the memory of the last
loving voice he had heard. One gloomy evening, when
even this memory had faded, and he awaited the approaching
darkness to make his design secure, a hand was laid
on his arm. A man in the simple garb of the Friends
stood beside him, and a face which reflected the kindness
he, `I am drawn to thee by the great trouble of thy mind.
Shall I tell thee what it is thee meditates?' The young
man shook his head. `I will be silent, then, but I will
save thee. I know the human heart, and its trials and
weaknesses, and it may be put into my mouth to give thee
strength.' He took the young man's hand, as if he had
been a little child, and led him to his home. He heard
the sad story, from beginning to end; and the young
man wept upon his breast, to hear no word of reproach,
but only the largest and tenderest pity bestowed upon
him. They knelt down, side by side, at midnight; and
the Friend's right hand was upon his head while they
prayed.
“The young man was rescued from his evil ways, to
acknowledge still further the boundless mercy of Providence.
The dissipation wherein he had recklessly sought
death was, for him, a marvellous restoration to life. His
lungs had become sound and free from the tendency to
disease. The measure of his forgiveness was almost more
than he could bear. He bore his cross thenceforward with
a joyful resignation, and was mercifully drawn nearer and
nearer to the Truth, until, in the fulness of his convictions,
he entered into the brotherhood of the Friends.
“I have been powerfully moved to tell you this story.”
Friend Carter concluded, “from a feeling that it may be
needed, here, at this time, to influence some heart trembling
in the balance. Who is there among you, my friends,
that may not snatch a brand from the burning! Oh, believe
given into the hands of us imperfect mortals, and
leave the awful attribute of wrath in the hands of the
Lord!”
He sat down, and dead silence ensued. Tears of emotion
stood in the eyes of the hearers, men as well as women,
and tears of gratitude and thanksgiving gushed warmly
from those of Asenath. An ineffable peace and joy descended
upon her heart.
When the meeting broke up, Friend Mitchenor, who
had not recognized Richard Hilton, but had heard the
story with feelings which he endeavored in vain to control,
approached the preacher.
“The Lord spoke to me this day through thy lips,”
said he; “will thee come to one side, and hear me a minute?”
“Eli Mitchenor!” exclaimed Friend Carter; “Eli! I
knew not thee was here! Doesn't thee know me?”
The old man stared in astonishment. “It seems like
a face I ought to know,” he said, “but I can't place thee.”
They withdrew to the shade of one of the poplars. Friend
Carter turned again, much moved, and, grasping the old
man's hands in his own, exclaimed—
“Friend Mitchenor, I was called upon to-day to speak
of myself. I am—or, rather, I was—the Richard Hilton
whom thee knew.”
Friend Mitchenor's face flushed with mingled emotions
of shame and joy, and his grasp on the preacher's hands
tightened.
“But thee calls thyself Carter?” he finally said.
“Soon after I was saved,” was the reply, “an aunt on
the mother's side died, and left her property to me, on condition
that I should take her name. I was tired of my
own then, and to give it up seemed only like losing my
former self; but I should like to have it back again now.”
“Wonderful are the ways of the Lord, and past finding
out!” said the old man. “Come home with me,
Richard,—come for my sake, for there is a concern on my
mind until all is clear between us. Or, stay,—will thee
walk home with Asenath, while I go with Moses?”
“Asenath?”
“Yes. There she goes, through the gate. Thee can
easily overtake her. I 'm coming, Moses!”—and he hurried
away to his son's carriage, which was approaching.
Asenath felt that it would be impossible for her to meet
Richard Hilton there. She knew not why his name had
been changed; he had not betrayed his identity with the
young man of his story; he evidently did not wish it to be
known, and an unexpected meeting with her might surprise
him into an involuntary revelation of the fact. It
was enough for her that a saviour had arisen, and her lost
Adam was redeemed,—that a holier light than the autumn
sun's now rested, and would forever rest, on the one landscape
of her youth. Her eyes shone with the pure brightness
of girlhood, a soft warmth colored her cheek and
smoothed away the coming lines of her brow, and her step
was light and elastic as in the old time.
Eager to escape from the crowd, she crossed the highway,
the secluded lane. The breeze had died away, the air
was full of insect-sounds, and the warm light of the sinking
sun fell upon the woods and meadows. Nature seemed
penetrated with a sympathy with her own inner peace.
But the crown of the benignant day was yet to come.
A quick footstep followed her, and ere long a voice, near
at hand, called her by name.
She stopped, turned, and for a moment they stood
silent, face to face.
“I knew thee, Richard!” at last she said, in a trembling
voice; “may the Lord bless thee!”
Tears were in the eyes of both.
“He has blessed me,” Richard answered, in a reverent
tone; “and this is His last and sweetest mercy. Asenath,
let me hear that thee forgives me.”
“I have forgiven thee long ago, Richard—forgiven,
but not forgotten.”
The hush of sunset was on the forest, as they walked
onward, side by side, exchanging their mutual histories.
Not a leaf stirred in the crowns of the tall trees, and the
dusk, creeping along between their stems, brought with it
a richer woodland odor. Their voices were low and subdued,
as if an angel of God were hovering in the shadows,
and listening, or God Himself looked down upon them
from the violet sky.
At last Richard stopped.
“Asenath,” said he, “does thee remember that spot
on the banks of the creek, where the rudbeckias grew?”
“I remember it,” she answered, a girlish blush rising
to her face.
“If I were to say to thee now what I said to thee
there, what would be thy answer?”
Her words came brokenly.
“I would say to thee, Richard,—`I can trust thee,—
I do love thee!”
“Look at me, Asenath.”
Her eyes, beaming with a clearer light than even then
when she first confessed, were lifted to his. She placed
her hands gently upon his shoulders, and bent her head
upon his breast. He tenderly lifted it again, and, for the
first time, her virgin lips knew the kiss of man.
| Beauty and the beast | |