 | Clovernook, or, Recollections of our
neighborhood in the West |  |
THE SCHOOLMISTRESS.
What a continual war of good and evil there is in life, and
how often we feel in these “homeless moors” of the world, in
view of the bondage of wrong, that it were of all things the best
if we might fly existence! but then the mystery that is lying
under that terrible and awful shadow, Death! it might be even
worse than this present suffering. And so, clinging to the dark
and yearning for the light, we live on, in trembling hesitancy,
afraid to root up the thorns which have given us shelter in some
sort, lest no roses may spring in their place. The love of the
flesh keeps down our prayers; the present is strong on our
souls; and for the future, “it rambles out in endless aisles of
mist, the further still the darker.” How hard it is to think
correctly and act firmly—how hard, even to be true to our convictions—
Will be the final goal of ill,
To pangs of nature, sins of will,
Defects of doubt, and taints of blood.”
piled in a thick mass overhanging the eaves and the gables.
Around the low stone chimney, a hand's breadth of black alone
was visible. About the door the ground was bare, for the wind
had been busy, as fantastic curves and curious ridges and
patches of naked ground attested. Across the smooth white
meadows, and along the edges of the woods, were the tracks of
the rabbits, driven forth by their own hunger or the hunger of
the stronger animals that hunted them from their burrows.
of the trees held their ridges of snow, save that now and then,
as a stronger wind came by, a little bough shook down its burden
and uplifted itself as before. The stubs in the clearing
looked like beautiful sculptures, and the many stumps like
higher heaps of snow.
Close to the edge of the wood, and leading to the main road,
a narrow path is trodden from the cabin. It is night, a dismal
winter night, and the light shines through the little window
across the level snow, through the window with its drapery of
frosty vines. The small brown birds that have been twittering
about the door all day, now picking the crumbs which the hand
of the cottage girl has kindly scattered, and now dipping their
wings in some loose drift, and scattering the flakes abroad again,
have gone to the favorite roost, and are quite still, one shining
red foot drawn up in the warm feathers, and one clasping the
bough beneath. Crooked limbs of oak and maple, and smoothsticks
of white ash, are heaped up in the deep fireplace, and the
ruddy glow shines over the blue hearthstones where the cricket
sits singing to himself, across the floor and along the opposite
wall. How the gilt lettering shines from the shelf of books,
how the face of the old-fashioned clock glistens, how the blue
cups and nicely polished platters in the dressers glow again.
The room is humble and very quiet, but the broad blaze and
the smile of Caty makes it cheerful, and yet her smile is half
sad. An hour ago she was sewing by the table, and singing
happily some careless roundelay of love; then the song grew
still, and she wrought on for some time in silence; then the
work fell from her hands, and opening a volume, she read about
some hapless shepherd who went from the flowery crofts and
the white tendance of his harmless fold, “to the still beckoning
of a shadowy hand, into the unseen land.” But now, though
her eyes are still resting on the page, she turns the leaves no
more. Is she thinking of the poor shepherd, and gathering
flowers to strew about his visionary corse? or sees she, in imagination,
From his stray lambs, the wool?”
own heart. Across the dark woods, and over the hills by the
old ruinous church, the snow is heaped high and smooth over a
new mound. There is no head-stone, for she was a widow, and
very poor, who lies below, leaving only the humblest roof for
the orphan who sits musing to-night so sadly. Yes, more than
the roof—the example of a pious life and her dying blessing.
She pushes the dark mass of hair away from her forehead, and
leans one cheek on the thin, pallid hand, for she seems wasted
with pain or care; but the expression of the face is too fixed
and calm—she is not musing of the dead.
There is a sudden gust; the flame flashed higher and higher,
and the door creaks; the fast-beating heart sends the crimson
to her cheek. Since the day the white sheet was wrapped
about her mother's coffin, she has been used to the silence and
the darkness, and is not afraid. Why should the wind startle
her? Perhaps she fears the coming of some simple but kind-hearted
neighbor, who will repeat the old story—how wrong
it is to grieve, and how much better off are the dead. Idle,
idle! she knows it all; but for that knowledge did one mourner
ever weep the less? She does not fear that it is aunt Jane, for
her condolence is not obtrusive; she does not say, how much
greater God's wisdom is than ours, and how rebellious it is to
question or mourn over his providence. True, she talks of the
divine goodness, of the pleasant sunshine, of the pure cold
water, and the warm genial fire—of all the blessings that are
in the world—and with her own hands brings them near, so
near that the young orphan sees them and feels them, and rises
up strengthened to go about her household cares, and give her
soul to peace. Aunt Jane is one of the true comforters. She
does not open afresh the closing wound, by even talking of the
virtues of the dead, recounting the fortitude with which they endured
suffering, and the pious resignation with which they met
the great agony, nor repeat their last words, nor call back the
look they wore in the coffin, and give a last obtrusive exhortation
on the duty of resignedness to the will of God. She does
not scrupulously avoid all mention of suffering or of death; but
she makes not these the burden of all conversation. Sometimes
cake, sometimes the last newspaper, and sometimes even a
sample of her new dress. These little things are not without
meaning—they have a humanizing tendency, reconcile us to
live yet in the world, and stimulate us to do in return good
deeds.
In the by-ways of life, there are a great many such good
women as Aunt Jane. It is not she whom Caty fears, as she
turns eagerly to the door, and yet she would be no happier for
her coming to-night. It was only the wind! there was no hand
on the latch, nor does she hear the approach of any footsteps;
there is only the sound of a team crushing through the snow
along the highway. The clock strikes; she will not look around,
but counts every stroke. Seven, only seven! It was later last
night, and the night before; and, rising, she lays the embers
that have fallen, together again, and resumes her work. It has
been dark so long that she scarcely can think it is not later. “I
have resolved,” she says, “and must-act as I have resolved, and
what matters it whether he comes to-night or not: if he comes,
it must be the last time;” and glancing at the clock, she
sighed, for it was in the very hope he would come that she
gathered the resolve. Oh, how long the moments were! another,
and another, and another! And yet no step disturbs the
silence. One minute her hands lie idle in her lap, and gazing
steadily in the fire, she tries to conjure images out of the burning
coals. In vain—she cannot see the maiden playing the harp,
nor the church with its slender spire, nor the old man leading a
child, nor the dog watching the two ducks as they swim gracefully
away; she sees nothing but burning coals, though all
these were here last night. Another minute, and she re-opens
the closed book, and turns leaf after leaf in quick succession,
but it will not do; it were as well for her to turn blank leaves
as those printed ones, whether they be romance or history, or
the divine insanity of dreams. Presently this truth becomes
quite clear to her, and closing the book, she rises and walks to
and fro across the floor, every now and then pressing her face
to the window, and, seeing but the cold blank reach of snow,
turns away, and walks more hurriedly than before. The clock
longer, and freely they flow, until the sounds of her emotion
quite drown the footstep that rings on the threshold. The visitor
seems consciously welcome, and after a slight rap, opens
the door himself, saying gaily, as he enters, “And so you are
not pleased to see me to-night, or your fire would be less dim,
and your welcome less slow!”
And Caty, turning quickly, betrays all her feeling, and in
the anguish of the moment, is not ashamed that she betrays it:
“Oh, you are come at last. I am so glad you are come!”
These were not the words Caty had intended to speak to
Richard, for the reader knows well enough that it was he whom
she expected, he who came; but the heart spoke in spite of the
prohibition laid on the lips. Nor did she shrink from the arm
that encircled her, or reprove the secretly forbidden kiss.
She had been so alone, so desolate in the world, duty had
seemed so hard, and the world so dark! but Richard had come,
and her low-roofed cabin grew a paradise. How pleasant it
was to teach the little district school, and how the children
loved her, and every day brought her fruit or flowers, or whatever
they chanced to have; how pleasant to go home at night
and renew the cheerful fire, and sit by the table, with book
or work—for then Richard was sure to come, and this, after
all, was the secret that gave its new aspect to the world.
He had been successful, beyond all his hopes, and with success
had come amiability; and more than this, the great purifier and
refiner of life had taken up its abode in his heart; all the
better qualities of his nature were expanding, blooming back to
the light of a smile. He was not the selfish, despondent Richard
he was of old; not at all; but full of sunny cheerfulness
and hope. True, there was something of the old leaven in his
nature; something of selfishness; and he still clung to the fatal
delusion that he could do no otherwise than he did.
Curiosity, perhaps, and a desire to relieve the ennui which
oppressed him, prompted his first visits to the cabin. He
presently saw, however, the tendency of things, yet delayed
to give up feeling to the mastery of judgment, until it became,
if not impossible, at least a very hard thing to do. “Caty
think so, Aunt Jane? Even I, perhaps, will be some relief to
the old place.”
Aunt Jane, in the kindness and innocency of her nature,
would say, “Yes—but don't stay late, Dicky;” and so, feeling in
some sort fortified by her sanction, he would go, saying, “If we
be the happier for being together to-night, let the morrow take
care of itself.” Then, too, he would try to persuade himself
that he was doing a purely disinterested and benevolent thing.
Caty, naturally of a melancholy temper, would be sad, for that
the wind whistled in such a dismal way; else it was cloudy
and raining, and such gloomy weather affected the mind; especially
of one recently bereaved; it really became his duty, at
such times, to brighten the darkness as much as possible. Then,
again, there was a full moon, and such nights were the loneliest
in the world, worse than clouds or winds; he could neither read
nor sleep; he wished some patient would call him, it would be
a relief; but he had no idea one would; it would be of no use
to stay at home on that account; to go to the village was too
far, and Caty lived right across the meadow: he believed he
would go there for a part of the evening. Such apologies he made
to himself, and believed or affected to believe them sufficient,
though if he had permitted any searching of his heart, he would
have found the motive and the prompter of his conduct there.
When John Gilpin took his famous ride, he went because his
horse would go, and when Richard Claverel went to the cabin,
he went because his thoughts would go; nor did he try to curb
or check them in the least. Self-sacrifice is a hard thing; to
climb the iced mountain, to front the blinding sunshine of the
desert, or to face a thousand foes, if there be the remotest
possibility of ultimate success, were, in comparison, an easy
thing. To love what seems to us lovable is human nature,
and so loving, to desire the love of the being loved, is nature
still.
The smoothness and the sheen of beauty's cheek,
Nor feel the heart can never all grow cold?”
Not the mighty bard whose life was made sorrowful by the
hands held him back; and not the humble and unheard-of villager,
however much he may seem insensible to those softer
spells which have their power in palaces—however quietly and
coldly he appears to lead an even and sequestered life.
“I will not suffer my heart to be touched,” said Richard;
but if his heart had not already been touched, he would have
felt no need to say it; and when at last he could no longer conceal
the truth from himself, he said, “I alone will be the sufferer,
she shall never know my love, nor will I ask her to love
me in return.”
What need was there that he should? And if he did not, it
was only that he might have something upon which to rest his
violated conscience, for he knew that
Idle words can never say,
Felt without the need of utterance,
That had won her heart away.”
And so they sat together by the winter fire—Richard and
Caty. She at least was innocent. As she said, she had been
alone and desolate in the world; Richard had been kind to her,
and she had learned to love him before she knew that he had
no hand with which to give to her his heart; and now how could
she tear away the shelter from her saddened life, and once more
stand alone—a thousand times more alone than before. And
what excuse or consolation had Richard to offer? “The world
is all before us,” he said, “where to choose our place of rest.
We did not give ourselves the natures we have; and are the
strongest impulses of that nature to be forever crushed down?
And if they are, who, in this instance, will be benefited—men,
or angels? Neither. And even if they were, do we owe no
duties to ourselves? I, for one, do not believe that eternal
sacrifice, eternal abnegation of self, is the highest duty. Are
we required to sit in the shade when the sunshine is abroad, to
fold a napkin over our eyes when the stars are in heaven; or
shall we sit in the genial warmth of the one, and lift our souls
to the eternal grandeur of the other? Shall we turn away from
the fresh fountain, and drink of the bitter and stagnant pool?
No! Shall we part as you advise, and thereby break our
do? Or shall we go through the world together, helping
and strengthening each other? There is no more sacred tie
than that which binds us to one another now. With you, I am
strong enough to front the most adverse fortune; without you,
I am poor and helpless.”
Alas, for Caty. She had no answer but tears. What would
Aunt Jane say? What would all the world say? And would
not her own heart condemn her?
“Away in the West there are valleys as green as this; there
we can make a home, there we can make new friends. None
will have ever seen or heard of us, and we may live lives of
usefulness and honor, for we shall neither dishonor ourselves
nor the higher power. Love in its strength and purity can
prompt to no wrong; and, yielding to its dictates, our lives are
henceforth one, and cannot be divided. If we part, the world
will be a waste, and we poor wanderers in the dark.”
Whether Richard spoke sincere convictions I know not, but
from my knowledge of his character I believe he did. Caty
was neither a child nor an infirm creature, but she had known
poverty and sorrow and all the hard struggles of life, and there
is such a thing as reasoning ourselves astray. And to-night,
when the torrent of anguish which fancied desertion had rolled
against her was swept off, her heart was more than ever susceptible
to the softer impressions.
The smooth sticks of white ash and the crooked boughs of
oak and maple had long been burned to a glowing mass, the
cricket sang in the hearth, now and then some heavier weight
of snow fell from the shaken bough, and high and cold and pale
the moon shone over all.
And in the glow of the embers, nor thinking of its genial
warmth, nor listening to the song of the cricket, nor gazing up
toward the moon, sat the lovers. The clock had struck many
times since the girl had counted it last, but in the old cherry
tree by Aunt Jane's door the cock is crowing lustily, and her
light will presently be glimmering through the pane in answer
to his call.
Mightier thou wert and art.”
| Clovernook, or, Recollections of our
neighborhood in the West | |