 | III. Clovernook, or, Recollections of our
neighborhood in the West |  |
3. III.
It was a rough, windy night in December; the stiff, bare
boughs rattled against each other; the ruffled cock made an
unnatural and untimely cackle among his silent mates; the
sheep, despite their woolly coats, bleated piteously; and sometimes
the oxen's low sounded mournfully across the hills. The
snow, which had fallen a day or two before, drifted no longer
as the wind went and came, but, with a frozen crust shining
under the moon, lay hard and cold. Linney was in her chamber,
a small, cheerless room, containing only a few old-fashioned
articles of furniture; a heap of snow lay in the open fire-place;
the uncurtained window was white with the fantastic figures of
the frost, and immediately above it a shelf was suspended, on
which were a few dusty volumes, together with the copy-books
which she had used at school. On this winter night, the place
an hour; she was seated on a low stool, beside her burned a
tallow candle, on the wooden chair on which it stood lay the
bible, open where her name was written, and in her hands she
held the dear letter he had written at the end of the first month
of their parting. As she read, a coming step crushed through
the snow, and she hurried to the window, and looked forth, or
tried to do so, for the frost prevented her from seeing distinctly.
Mr. Hulbert had been gone to the village since an hour before
night; doubtless he was now coming home, and had brought,
perhaps, news from Willard. She hastily placed the letter and
book beneath her pillow; to say truth, it was not the first time
they had lain there; and this done, she hurried below, and saw
the door closing on Mr. George Welden.
The visitor bowed gracefully, as though entering the most
elegant drawing-room; and his sleepy blue eyes, as they encountered
hers, had in them a sparkle of pleasure not habitual
to them, and about the good-natured mouth, as he spoke, there
was a sweetness which most women would have found winning.
“You see my memory is less treacherous than you thought,”
he said, addressing Linney, who stood blushing and smiling
before him, and at the same time presenting, not a brace of
woodcocks, but only a common gray rabbit.
“Why, Linney!” exclaimed Mrs. Hulbert, reprovingly, as
she apprehended the cause of the laughter, which the girl turned
her face away to conceal.
“What funny red eyes it has,” she answered, ingenuously,
not heeding the implied reproof.
“I don't know,” interposed George Welden; and, taking the
rabbit from her hands, he added, “the fellow is too heavy for
you to hold.”
Ordinarily there would be nothing interesting or provocative
of merriment in the dulled eyes of a dead rabbit; but somehow
it chanced that the sportsman and she to whom he brought
his tribute, found an almost exhaustless fund of speculation and
mirth as they stood together, turning the creature from side to
side, examining his form and the texture of his fur. Certainly
no one would have supposed that either of them had frightened
every morning of their lives, when they had walked in the
fields. But the veriest trifles hold us spell-bound, sometimes;
a single withered rose may be sweeter than whole fields of
fresh flowers; and on one occasion, at least, a harmless rabbit
that had been dislodged from the place where he had burrowed
under the winter snow, in which the drops of his life-blood
were yet fresh, served for what seemed the gayest amusement.
“Look there!” exclaimed Mrs. Hulbert, as a fresh crimson
drop trickled over the neck and plashed on the white apron
of Linney: “Oh, dear! and my hands, too!” she said, holding
them up.
“It was all my fault,” said Mr. Welden, looking as if grievously
annoyed. Linney's cheek grew as red as the spot in her
apron. It was not so much the words as the tone of tenderness
with which they were uttered, and the really distressing
look that accompanied them. Both felt it a relief when Mr.
Hulbert entered, and the good wife's attention was diverted
from them, to prepare the arm-chair, and stir the fire.
“But, Linney, you do n't know how to cook it, do you?”
resumed the young man, with his former self-possession, and a
familiar manner he had never used before.
“Why, I suppose we shall fry it.”
He laughed, as if the idea were preposterous, and said he
knew more about the culinary art than half the women, as half
the men are apt to say when they have opportunity She did
not seem to heed him, and he continued, “You must dine with
us to-morrow; we are to have one, too;” and in a moment,
seeing that she did not answer, he said, “Will you come?”
She made some vague reply, which her admirer construed
into an acceptance. But the truth is, she had heard nothing
that he said; and now, as she sunk into a chair, her cheek
assumed a pallor, and her black eyes, naturally brilliant with
joyous feeling, assumed a steadfast and earnest expression,
which was never quite forgotten by him who saw it. She had
been listening to the Hulberts, as they talked of their son.
“What!” said the mother, in a surprised whisper, as she
leaned over the shoulder of her husband, who answered, “He
filled with stuff about Euclid, freshmen, alumni, and all that
which we do n't know nothing about; besides, he wants me to
send money, and tells me to sell the hay if I can't get it without.”
The old man continued, in a tremulous voice, “I expect
he has been running me in debt—twenty or thirty dollars, like
enough.”
“Had he got Linney's letter?” asked the mother, as if willing
to divert his thoughts.
“He received it a week ago,” was replied, “but had not yet
had time to read it when he wrote.”
This it was which brought the pallor to the cheek of Linney,
and the wild and fixed expression to her eyes.
That night, as Mrs. Hulbert wound the clock, she said,
“Do you think you could keep house, Linney, for a day or
two?”
“Yes—why?” she replied, looking more curiosity than she
spoke.
“Oh, I do n't know, child;” but she quickly added, “yes I
do, too. May be we will go away in a week or so, father
and me.”
“Is Willard sick?” she asked, her heart beating strongly.
“No, we do n't know that he is;” and Mrs. Hulbert looked
anxiously into the fire.
“Because,” continued Linney, seeing that there was no prospect
of an explanation, “I thought it strange you should go to
see him when the session will close so soon.” She did not
venture to say, “When Willard is coming home so soon.”
But Mrs. Hulbert, who understood her meaning, replied,
“He is not coming home; he says he shall have plenty of
business and pleasure for the vacation; and, besides, he do n't
want to get his mind in its old trains of thought, he says.”
“Well,” answered Linney, and in that little word there was
a bitterness of meaning which the longest sentences could hardly
have expressed.
“I wonder,” said Mrs. Hulbert, presently, “if George has
nothing better to do than hunt rabbits—the poor, harmless
critters?”
“Such sports have been relished by wiser men than he,” answered
Linney, “and I see no particular harm in them.”
“Nor I, as I know of;” and Mrs. Hulbert grew thoughtful
and silent again.
So for an hour the two women sat together. The effect of
Willard's letter was reflected in the minds of both; and how
differently, in the estimate formed by each of George.
Before she retired that night, Linney visited Willard's room,
and, taking from the drawer the stockings designed for him,
replaced them with the bundle prepared for market. Then,
removing the pillow, she took the letter and the Bible and
placed them on the shelf above the window. By such processes
are shaped destinies.
The following day, while preparations for Mrs. Hulbert's
visit to the town where the college was were going briskly forward,
George Welden made his appearance, looking fresh, and
smiling, and happy. “I am come to carry Linney home with
me to dine,” he said, by way of apology to Mrs. Hulbert, who,
perhaps, looked something of the astonishment she felt. “And,”
he added, turning to the girl, “mother sends her compliments,
and says you must not disappoint her. I have myself superintended
the cooking of the rabbit.”
Linney was faltering some excuse, when Mrs. Hulbert interposed,
with an intimation that she could go just as well as not,
if she chose. The horse and sleigh waited at the door, the
young man seriously desired her company, and Mrs. Hulbert
evidently favored his inclinations.
“But I am not ready,” urged Linney, surveying her dress
with evident concern, and well aware that she possessed nothing
in which she would appear to better advantage.
“It is strange,” said Mrs. Hulbert, soliloquizing, “how particular
girls are now-a-days. That plaided flannel of Linney's
I could have worn to a wedding in my day.”
“And Linney can, too, if she has a mind to,” replied George,
laughing, and looking with admiration on the plaids of green,
and red, and blue, so smoothly ironed. In truth, it became the
rustic girl wonderfully well and when she had tied on the
nothing was needed to complete her toilet.
She felt a tremulous shrinking when, for the first time in her
life, she found herself in an elegantly-furnished apartment; but
Mrs. Welden, a sweet, motherly lady of sixty, soon put her
quite at ease, for Linney was a sunshiny and good-tempered girl,
little disposed to quarrel with circumstances. If there were a
little condescension in the lady's cordiality, a little patronage
in the equality she assumed, she did not stop to think of it,
and Mrs. Welden's heart was soon won entirely by her artless
and joyous manner. No wonder they were mutually pleased;
that each found in the other what she herself lacked—the one,
freshness, and sunshine, and hope; and the other, experience,
wisdom, and refinement.
George, habitually good-natured, indolent, careless, was on
that day restless, almost fietful. Now he boxed the ears of
some favorite hunter, for caressing his hand too familiarly; now
he found fault with the fire, which was either too hot or too cold;
and now he was irritated that Linney should be monopolized,
and, apparently, with so much willingness on her part, by even
his mother. Sometimes he tried to be amiable, and he more
than once ventured on a compliment to Linney, but she neither
blushed nor looked down, but only laughed, and replied in the
same vein, though her tone and manner said very plainly there
was little meaning in her words. He felt that he had no
power over her, and consequently became vexed with himself
more and more.
So pleased and delighted was Linney, that she remained long
after dinner; and the great cold moon made the snow sparkle
again as they drove homeward.
“Oh, what a beautiful home you have!” she said, looking
back admiringly, where the many lights of the great house
streamed across the snow.
“Would you like to live there always?” asked George,
tightening the rein.
“Oh, above all things!” she answered, ingenuously.
And the whip was brought in requisition, and Brock suffered
to go forward as fast as he would.
“How kind of you,” said Linney, patting the horse's neck,
when they alighted at the door, “to bring us home so soon.”
And she continued, turning to George, “I wish you were home,
too.”
The young man bit his lip, and resumed his seat in the sleigh.
He had hoped for an invitation to go in.
Mrs. Hulbert opened the door, and George drew in the rein
to say, “Tell Willard, if you please, I shall take as good care
of Linney as he would himself.”
Mrs. Hulbert thanked him, and Linney thought, “I am glad
you happened to say that—it will be so provoking to Willard.”
But neither understood that George remembered the slights he
had formerly received, and that he could not now deny himself
the pleasure of such a taunt. If Willard had been away chopping
wood for a month, Mr. George Welden would have been
silent; but it needed little sagacity to perceive, that though
pique had at first drawn these young persons together, there
was danger that the result would be very different from any
they themselves expected. Already, on the part of George,
there was an awakening affection, as trifles have indicated,
which he might find it very difficult ever to repress. In a
secluded neighborhood, where neither was likely to find much
companionship, it was perfectly natural, that having once met,
they should meet again, and that, time and circumstances
favoring, the young man should become a wooer, especially
when he was free from ambition, and altogether indifferent as
to what others should think of the mistress of his house and
heart, so that she pleased himself. It was natural, too, that a
humble rustic girl should not be wholly averse to the wooing,
especially when the wooer was handsome and the fortune
ample; and, above all, when she could rise so pre-eminently
above a lover who had discarded her.
And the case of Willard is common enough, too, perhaps.
Finding himself suddenly and unexpectedly in a circle somewhat
superior in cultivation and refinement to that in which his
old companion had moved—with girls who perhaps had some
prospects of fortune, and who certainly were more at home in
the world than she to whom he had so sincerely pledged his
should be subjected to the direction of tact, lighting the way for
his advancement in society, he set his foot upon her—not that he
despised her, so much as that he was blinded by the brilliancy
of new hopes, and really did not see nor think about her
at all.
Time taught them both the sincerity of that young and irretrievably-slighted
love. But, though Willard was for a short
time inflated with vanity, and warped from his true nature, he
possessed enough of genuine manhood to regain at length a fit
estimation of his forgotten duties, of the worth of such a character
as Linney's, and of the feelings she had cherished for him, until
they were alienated by his own neglect. He could learn, or
would learn, only by experience, that the guests of ambition
and of love must be forever distinct, or fruitless of rewards to
satisfy either the mind or the heart.
When five years were gone, and he returned from college,
no dear one met him with words sweeter than any triumphs;
Linney had been three years the wife of George Welden, and
one, the mother of “the sweetest little cherub,” Mrs. Hulbert
said, “in all the world.” She was living in the family mansion
of the Weldens—one of the finest in the vicinity of Clovernook—its
mistress, and was one of the most admired as well
as most beloved of all the ladies in the neighborhood.
“I wish, mother,” said Willard, one morning, “you would
fit up the little room that used to be Linney's, for my study.”
He had commenced a course of reading in the law, and was to
pursue it, for the most part, at home, where, whatever haunting
memories there might be, there would be little in the present
to distract his attention from the frigid and selfish philosophy
of expediency, which underlies all the learning and practice of
that profession. So the window was opened, and the cobwebs
swept down; and this, with the addition of a chair and a table
to the furniture, was all that was to be done. With folded
arms and thoughtful brow, the disappointed student superintended
these little preparations, and when all was completed,
he unlocked a small desk, and took from it two old and word
letters, which would scarcely bear unfolding; read and re-read
folded them, and, stepping on a chair, took from the shelf above
the window a book, and was slipping the letters between its
leaves, when his attention was suddenly arrested by the falling
of his own first letter to Linney to the floor—from the book
in which was written, in his own boyish hand, “Malinda Hulbert.”
Book and letter had been forgotten, and the dust of
years had gathered over them.
Willard is a bachelor to this day; and that homely room,
once Linney's, has a charm for him which much finer ones have
never possessed. When last I was out at Clovernook I drank
tea with good old Mrs. Hulbert, and the squire sat with us in
the early evening in the modest porch of the farm-house. As
I recalled to the mother some reminiscences of my childhood,
with which she was familiar, he left us, walking away silently,
and with an air of melancholy. I could not help but say, “How
changed!”
“I do n't know,” she answered; but, after a moment's silence,
“Yes, I do—poor Willard, he will never forget little Linney!”
—Sometimes, as he lingers in the autumn under the old
grape-vine in the meadow, where they recounted to each other
such dreams as arose in childhood, he sees her riding with
George Welden in the beautiful coach from which he thought
to look contemptuous triumph on his rival.
| III. Clovernook, or, Recollections of our
neighborhood in the West | |