 | II. My third book |  |
2. II.
Parson Blake was dead. His life, his kindly life,
seventy summers and no winter, was ended. In the
little church-yard on the hill-top they laid him gently
and reverently to his long sleep—the little church-yard
where he had faltered the last prayer over so
many of his flock; where, sixteen years before, he had
stood tearfully beside the bier of Margaret Grant.
Wife and children he had none. He had lived alone
all his blameless life, and his people had been to him
instead of kindred. Like his children they all mourned
for him. Not a heart beat in Mayfield to which he
was not dear—not an eye but was dim with tears at
the pastor's burial. He had married the old folk, he
had baptized their children, he had buried their dead,
and now he was gone to receive the reward of his labors.
More than forty years had he been in and out
before them, and broken bread in their midst. Was
it strange that his death left a great void, which never,
thereafter, could be filled?
It was with saddened mien the elders met together
to consult on the choice of his successor. No one
could ever be to them in his stead, and perhaps it
could hardly be expected of human nature that they
should award due credit to the honest endeavors of a
younger man. Thus Walter Fairfield came to them
under a disadvantage. They were kind-hearted people
which none but the dead could fill worthily to their
minds; and, moreover, he was a young man, just fresh
from his studies, not more than twenty-five.
On the first morning after his installation, Elder
Moses Grant called Elinor to his side, and charged her
to be ready in season for church—the young man
wouldn't be Parson Blake, to be sure, but they must
show his preaching due respect.
Elinor had grown, at sixteen, into a tall, graceful
girl, promoted to a seat in the village choir now, and
remarkable to all eyes but the accustomed ones of her
grandparents for her rare beauty.
There had never been much outward demonstration
of tenderness from Moses Grant to this girl, the child
of shame, the seal of disgrace, as he sometimes called
her in his accusing thoughts; and yet, almost unknown
to himself, he did love her tenderly. Much of
the love which had been Margaret's had come out of
her grave and folded itself round her child, though in
all her life the girl could never remember that he had
kissed her or lifted her upon his knee.
One night his wife, alarmed for Elinor's health during
the prevalence of an epidemic in the quiet town,
had called him to look upon her while she slept. It
was wonderful, the resemblance which she bore in her
slumbers to her dead mother. Waking, the play of
her features, the different expression of her eyes, was
all her own; but sleeping, he could almost have
thought Margaret was before him—Margaret, whom
he loved more in death than in life, because he forgave
her in dying.
Oh! how often the wave of death comes like a blessed
strife—a new birth, making those born again into the
world of spirits seem to us fair, and pure, and blameless
as the infant just laid for the first time upon its
mother's loving bosom.
Many times after that night Moses Grant, hard, stern
man as he was, stole into his grandchild's room and
watched her as she slept, thinking tender, softened
thoughts of her dead young mother—always a girl,
young and fair, in the old man's memory—and bitter,
scornful, murderous thoughts, which, in a nature less
restrained by rules of outward holiness, would have
shaped themselves into curses on that Gilbert Trumbull,
hated with an unforgiving, unresting hatred all
these years.
It needs not to be told with what ceaseless, caressing
tenderness Mary Grant loved her grandchild; and yet,
woman-like, Elinor, dear as both were to her, loved
most the old man, whose calm reserve seemed kindred
with her own quiet, deep inherited nature. Going up
the hill to church on this first morning of the new pastor's
ministry, she walked by her grandfather's side,
feeling with most tender sympathy the trial it would
be to him to see a new face in the old pulpit.
When the hymn was sung that morning, Walter
Fairfield, sitting back in his pulpit, screened by the
high desk, leaning his head on his hands, was striving
to compose his thoughts for his first sermon among his
first parishioners.
He heard, as one in a dream, above and apart from
all other tones, one clear, rich soprano voice, flooding
the old-fashioned church with its melody. It strengthened
him; bore up his soul to the very gates of heaven;
the voice was mortal or angelic. He was contented
to accept unquestioningly the help it brought. Elinor
Trumbull little knew what influence her singing
had on the sermon which followed.
It was such a discourse as had never before electrified
the simple villagers of Mayfield—full of earnest
thought, glowing with imagery, uttered with an eloquence
to which they were strangers. To Elinor
Trumbull it was a revelation. Full of sound religious
truth though it was, its unwonted grace of diction carried
her thoughts out—out from the quiet village
among the mountains into the world where such polish
must have been acquired—the gay, fascinating, far-off
world, beaming upon her fancy in such wondrous
hues. With her clear eyes fixed on the speaker, or
now and then veiled modestly under their fringing
lashes, unquiet, tumultuous thoughts were surging
through her heart—thoughts of the wonders of nature
and the wonders of art—brave men and beautiful
women, and a full, strong existence, tasking all her
capacities, quickening every pulse of her being, on
which she longed to enter; going out from the peace,
the quiet, the shadows of the mountains into the broad
plain, where were bugles and trumpets calling strong
souls onward to victory in the wonderful battle of
life.
The young clergyman, absorbed in his subject, did
not perceive her breathless interest—did not even consciously
see her face, so remarkable among all others
there for its patrician beauty; but yet he carried away
with him that day a conception of loveliness more perfect
than had ever dawned on him before—a sweet
meet him at every point of vision.
When the services were over, Walter Fairfield walked,
like one overtasked and weary, quietly out of the
church, and took the path leading through the field to
his simple parsonage. A kindly, cordial smile was on
his face, but he spoke to no one. The congregation
allowed him to pass in respectful silence, not ill-pleased
with the opportunity of discussing among themselves
the wonderful sermon to which they had listened.
Elinor Trumbull was faint and weak. The unwonted
excitement had been too much for her delicate organization,
and, telling her grandparents that she was not
well, she stole quietly away and went home.
Moses Grant came from church in the afternoon,
disposed to say but little of the young clergyman. He
had spoken with him after church—he would visit
them that week—it seemed that the Spirit of the Lord
was with him, but they must wait and see.
It was Wednesday afternoon when Elinor Trumbull,
busy among the stand of house-plants which were
her chief winter amusement, saw, from the kitchen window,
a figure coming down the hill. Her quick eye
recognized at once the new minister, and her girlish
heart thrilled with its first flutter of womanly vanity.
Shyly she gathered from her monthly-rose-bush a bud
just bursting into crimson bloom, and placed it in her
bosom. Then, stealing to the little looking-glass, she
smoothed down her already faultlessly smooth hair,
hoping, with pretty womanly self-consciousness, that
the two old people by the hearth would not notice her
unusual anxiety about her appearance. Then she said,
in her quiet, respectful voice,
“Hadn't I better light the fire in the parlor, grandfather?
I see the new minister is coming down the
hill.”
The room which she entered, in accordance with her
grandfather's “Certainly — make haste, child!” was
simply, even humbly furnished, and yet there had been
imparted to it an air of feminine grace and refinement
during the last two years, since it had been Elinor's
especial charge. Every thing was faultlessly neat.
Snowy muslin curtains draped the windows; the armchairs
were covered with crimson patch, and two corresponding
footstools—Elinor's own workmanship—
stood conveniently before them. A few books were
strewn upon the table—Parson Blake's gift to Elinor
—a Shakespeare, and the works of Pope and Milton, in
handsome bindings. Not a speck of dust was visible,
and yet Elinor, after lighting the fire, fidgeted nervously
with her feather-brush from chair to table, and
then, seized with a sudden impulse, sat down and appeared
diligently engaged in reading.
That was an afternoon of new and exquisite delight
in the girl's quiet life. Walter Fairfield possessed the
rare gift of clothing lofty thoughts in simple words,
and making himself alike agreeable to old and young.
To him also came, that winter day, a new revelation.
He recognized in Elinor's musical voice the clear tones
which had strengthened him for his Sabbath duties—
in her young, innocent face the vision he had carried
away from church on the Sabbath morning as a new
and superior type of loveliness. He had seen beautiful
women before, arrayed in the manifold charms of
style and fashion, but beside the unconscious grace of
Elinor Trumbull they seemed to him like flaunting
her bosom.
There was something dearer in Elinor's beauty than
the untroubled azure of her eyes, the golden flow of
her hair, the clear tints of her complexion—a soul
looking forth from the young wistful face, womanly,
pure, strong, and true.
And she, with her imaginative, dreamy nature, her
haunting visions of a perfect life, a refined and extended
culture shut out from her reach by mountains of
circumstances and destiny, listened to the new-comer's
voice, making music through all the avenues of her
being, and was content.
That night, when the supper was over—the supper
prefaced by a blessing, the first one spoken in that
house by Walter Fairfield, and whose prophecy to that
household of good or ill only the after years could
unseal — the simple supper which Elinor had made
beautiful by the exquisite neatness and delicacy of her
arrangement—when it was over, and the new minister
had taken his departure, the elder sat alone in the
best room, absorbed in thought; while his wife and
her granddaughter were busy in the kitchen, clearing
away the fragments and washing up the painted china.
Moses Grant was growing old. His hair was very
white; and trouble, more than years, had dug deep
furrows in his stern face. The habit was growing on
him, as it does on so many old men, of talking to himself.
As he sat there, leaning his head back in his
chair, and looking thoughtfully into the fire, he murmured,
“Well, after all, the young man does seem full of
the Spirit of the Lord. Yes, I really think the Lord
was to Mary and me. He didn't marry us; he didn't
bury our seven children; he didn't know and love
Margaret. We are too old now for him to care for us
—too old to make new ties—and yet, there's Elinor.
The child needs a pastor's care. He will take an interest
in her. I believe he does already: she's a good
child. Through her, he may get attached to us—who
knows? It's a blessed thing when folk can love their
minister, and be loved back again, as in Parson Blake's
time. And then this young man will be getting married
one of these days. He'll be sure to marry a good
woman, and she'll be a nice friend for Elinor when
Mary and I are laid in the church-yard, with our seven
children gone before. Yes, they'll be good friends for
the child, and she'll need them then. Elinor!” he
called, in a louder tone, and the girl came into the old
parlor, and sat down on a stool in the firelight.
“I like this young man, Elinor. He isn't Parson
Blake, to be sure; but I think he has the Spirit of
God in his heart, and there's no reason why you
shouldn't like him as well as another. You have not
the memories of so many years to bind you to the
dead. He told me this afternoon that he should start
a Bible-class, and I want you to join it, and see if you
can't keep up your reputation as Parson Blake's best
scholar.”
“Very well, grandpa;” and then the girl sat there
in the silence, while her fancy made glowing pictures
in the embers, out of which looked the dark, kindly
eyes of the new minister. That she could ever be
any thing to him never entered her dreams; she only
hoped that, ignorant girl as she was, she might find
some of his wonderful knowledge; lend her books,
perhaps, and now and then condescend to talk to her.
The next Sunday she joined his Bible-class; and
that day, and for many quiet Sabbath-days thereafter,
the clear tones of her singing renewed his strength,
and carried his soul heavenward; and the approving
light of her expressive eyes, never by any chance turned
away from their steady gaze, filled him with calm,
and yet not always calm, delight.
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