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[Illustration: "LET ME OPEN THE BURR FOR YOU." Chestnut Burr. Frontispiece.]
The Works of E. P. Roe
VOLUME FOUR
OPENING A CHESTNUT BURR
ILLUSTRATED
THIS BOOK
IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED TO MY WIFE
PREFACE
In sending this, my fourth venture, out upon the uncertain waters of public opinion, I shall say but few words of preface. In the past I have received considerable well-deserved criticism from the gentlemen of the caustic pen, but so far from having any hard feeling toward them, I have rather wondered that they found so much to say that was favorable. How they will judge this simple October story (if they think it worth while to judge it at all) I leave to the future, and turn to those for whom the book was really written.
In fancy I see them around the glowing hearth in quiet homes, such as I have tried to describe in the following pages, and hope that this new-comer will be welcomed for the sake of those that preceded it. Possibly it may make friends of its own.
From widely separated parts of the country, and from almost every class, I have received many and cordial assurances that my former books were sources not only of pleasure, but also of help and benefit, and I am deeply grateful for the privilege of unobtrusively entering so many households, and saying words on that subject which is inseparable from happiness in both worlds.
I think the purpose of the book will become apparent to the reader. The incidents and characters are mainly imaginary.
Observation has shown me that there are many in the world, like my hero, whose condition can be illustrated by the following lines:
Were some great ship all out of stores,
When half-way o'er the sea,
Fit emblem of too many lives,
Such vessel doomed would be.
Must there not be something fatally wrong in that scheme of life which finds an heir of eternity weary, listless, discouraged, while yet in the dawning of existence? It is not in perishing things, merely, to give back the lost zest. But a glad zest and hopefulness might be inspired even in the most jaded and ennui-cursed, were there in our homes such simple, truthful natures as that of my heroine; and in the sphere of quiet homes—not elsewhere—I believe that woman can best rule and save the world.
Highland Falls, N.Y., September, 1874.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I A HERO BUT NOT HEROIC
CHAPTER II OPENING A CHESTNUT BURR
CHAPTER III MORBID BROODING
CHAPTER IV HOW MISS WALTON MANAGED PEOPLE
CHAPTER V WAS IT AN ACCIDENT?
CHAPTER VI UNEXPECTED CHESTNUT BURRS
CHAPTER VII A CONSPIRACY
CHAPTER VIII WITCHCRAFT
CHAPTER IX MISS WALTON RECOMMENDS A HOBBY
CHAPTER X A PLOT AGAINST MISS WALTON
CHAPTER XI A DRINKING SONG AT A PRAYER-MEETING
CHAPTER XII FOILED IN ONE DIRECTION
CHAPTER XIII INTERPRETING CHESTNUT BURRS
CHAPTER XIV A WELL-MEANIN' MAN
CHAPTER XV MISS WALTON'S DREAM
CHAPTER XVI AN ACCIDENT IN THE MOUNTAINS
CHAPTER XVII PROMISE OR DIE
CHAPTER XVIII IN THE DEPTHS
CHAPTER XIX MISS WALTON MADE OF DIFFERENT CLAY FROM OTHERS
CHAPTER XX MISS WALTON MADE OF ORDINARY CLAY
CHAPTER XXI PASSION AND PENITENCE
CHAPTER XXII NOT A HEROINE BUT A WOMAN
CHAPTER XXIII GREGORY'S FINAL CONCLUSION
CHAPTER XXIV THE WORM-INFESTED CHESTNUT—GREGORY TELLS THE WORST
CHAPTER XXV THE OLD HOME IN DANGER—GREGORY RETRIEVES HIMSELF
CHAPTER XXVI CHANGES IN GREGORY
CHAPTER XXVII PLEADING FOR LIFE AND LOVE
CHAPTER XXVIII WHAT A LOVER COULD DO
CHAPTER XXIX DEEPENING SHADOWS
CHAPTER XXX KEPT FROM THE EVIL
CHAPTER XXXI LIVE! LIVE! ANNIE'S APPEAL
CHAPTER XXXII AT SEA—A MYSTERIOUS PASSENGER
CHAPTER XXXIII A COLLISION AT SEA—WHAT A CHRISTIAN COULD DO
CHAPTER XXXIV UNMASKED
CHAPTER XXXV A CHESTNUT BURR AND A HOME
CHAPTER I
A HERO, BUT NOT HEROIC
"Shall I ever be strong in mind or body again?" said Walter Gregory, with irritation, as he entered a crowded Broadway omnibus.
The person thus querying so despairingly with himself was a man not far from thirty years of age, but the lines of care were furrowed so deeply on his handsome face, that dismal, lowering morning, the first of October, that he seemed much older. Having wedged himself in between two burly forms that suggested thrift down town and good cheer on the avenue, he appears meagre and shrunken in contrast. He is tall and thin. His face is white and drawn, instead of being ruddy with health's rich, warm blood. There is scarcely anything remaining to remind one of the period of youth, so recently vanished; neither is there the dignity, nor the consciousness of strength, that should come with maturer years. His heavy, light-colored mustache and pallid face gave him the aspect of a blase man of the world who had exhausted himself and life at an age when wisely directed manhood should be just entering on its richest pleasures.
And such an opinion of him, with some hopeful exceptions and indications, would be correct. The expression of irritation and self-disgust still remaining on his face as the stage rumbles down town is a hopeful sign. His soul at least is not surrounded by a Chinese wall of conceit. However perverted his nature may be, it is not a shallow one, and he evidently has a painful sense of the wrongs committed against it. Though his square jaw and the curve of his lip indicate firmness, one could not look upon his contracted brow and half-despairing expression, as he sits oblivious of all surroundings, without thinking of a ship drifting helplessly and in distress. There are encouraging possibilities in the fact that from those windows of the soul, his eyes, a troubled rather than an evil spirit looks out. A close observer would see at a glance that he was not a good man, but he might also note that he was not content with being a bad one. There was little of the rigid pride and sinister hardness or the conceit often seen on the faces of men of the world who have spent years in spoiling their manhood; and the sensual phase of coarse dissipation was quite wanting.
You will find in artificial metropolitan society many men so emasculated that they are quite vain of being blase—fools that with conscious superiority smile disdainfully at those still possessing simple, wholesome tastes for things which they in their indescribable accent characterize as a "bore."
But Walter Gregory looked like one who had early found the dregs of evil life very bitter, and his face was like that of nature when smitten with untimely frosts.
He reached his office at last, and wearily sat down to the routine work at his desk. Instead of the intent and interested look with which a young and healthy man would naturally enter on his business, he showed rather a dogged resolution to work whether he felt like it or not, and with harsh disregard of his physical weakness.
The world will never cease witnessing the wrongs that men commit against each other; but perhaps if the wrongs and cruelties that people inflict on themselves could be summed up the painful aggregate would be much larger.
As Gregory sat bending over his writing, rather from weakness than from a stooping habit, his senior partner came in, and was evidently struck by the appearance of feebleness on the part of the young man. The unpleasant impression haunted him, for having looked over his letters he came out of his private office and again glanced uneasily at the colorless face, which gave evidence that only sheer force of will was spurring a failing hand and brain to their tasks.
At last Mr. Burnett came and laid his hand on his junior partner's shoulder, saying, kindly, "Come, Gregory, drop your work. You are ill. The strain upon you has been too long and severe. The worst is over now, and we are going to pull through better than I expected. Don't take the matter so bitterly to heart. I admit myself that the operation promised well at first. You were misled, and so were we all, by downright deception. That the swindle was imposed on us through you was more your misfortune than your fault, and it will make you a keener business man in the future. You have worked like a galley-slave all summer to retrieve matters, and have taken no vacation at all. You must take one now immediately, or you will break down altogether. Go off to the woods; fish, hunt, follow your fancies; and the bracing October air will make a new man of you."
"I thank you very much," Gregory began. "I suppose I do need rest. In a few days, however, I can leave better—"
"No," interrupted Mr. Burnett, with hearty emphasis; "drop everything. As soon as you finish that letter, be off. Don't show your face here again till November."
"I thank you for your interest in me," said Gregory, rising. "Indeed, I believe it would be good economy, for if I don't feel better soon I shall be of no use here or anywhere else."
"That's it," said old Mr. Burnett, kindly. "Sick and blue, they go together. Now be off to the woods, and send me some game. I won't inquire too sharply whether you brought it down with lead or silver."
Gregory soon left the office, and made his arrangements to start on his trip early the next morning. His purpose was to make a brief visit to the home of his boyhood and then to go wherever a vagrant fancy might lead.
The ancestral place was no longer in his family, though he was spared the pain of seeing it in the hands of strangers. It had been purchased a few years since by an old and very dear friend of his deceased father—a gentleman named Walton. It had so happened that Gregory had rarely met his father's friend, who had been engaged in business at the West, and of his family he knew little more than that there were two daughters—one who had married a Southern gentleman, and the other, much younger, living with her father. Gregory had been much abroad as the European agent of his house, and it was during such absence that Mr. Walton had retired from business and purchased the old Gregory homestead. The young man felt sure, however, that though a comparative stranger himself, he would, for his father's sake, be a welcome visitor at the home of his childhood. At any rate he determined to test the matter, for the moment he found himself at liberty he felt a strange and an eager longing to revisit the scenes of the happiest portion of his life. He had meant to pay such a visit in the previous spring, soon after his arrival from Europe, when his elation at being made partner in the house which he so long had served as clerk reached almost the point of happiness.
Among those who had welcomed him back was a man a little older than himself, who, in his absence, had become known as a successful operator in Wall Street. They had been intimate before Gregory went abroad, and the friendship was renewed at once. Gregory prided himself on his knowledge of the world, and was not by nature inclined to trust hastily; and yet he did place implicit confidence in Mr. Hunting, regarding him as a better man than himself. Hunting was an active member of a church, and his name figured on several charities, while Gregory had almost ceased to attend any place of worship, and spent his money selfishly upon himself, or foolishly upon others, giving only as prompted by impulse. Indeed, his friend had occasionally ventured to remonstrate with him against his tendencies to dissipation, saying that a young man of his prospects should not damage them for the sake of passing gratification. Gregory felt the force of these words, for he was exceedingly ambitious, and bent upon accumulating wealth and at the same time making a brilliant figure in business circles.
In addition to the ordinary motives which would naturally lead him to desire such success he was incited by a secret one more powerful than all the others combined.
Before going abroad, when but a clerk, he had been the favored suitor of a beautiful and accomplished girl. Indeed the understanding between them almost amounted to an engagement, and he revelled in a passionate, romantic attachment at an age when the blood is hot, the heart enthusiastic, and when not a particle of worldly cynicism and adverse experience had taught him to moderate his rose-hued anticipations. She seemed the embodiment of goodness, as well as beauty and grace, for did she not repress his tendencies to be a little fast? Did she not, with more than sisterly solicitude, counsel him to shun certain florid youth whose premature blossoming indicated that they might early run to seed? and did he not, in consequence, cut Guy Bonner, the jolliest fellow he had ever known? Indeed, more than all, had she not ventured to talk religion to him, so that for a time he had regarded himself as in a very "hopeful frame of mind," and had been inclined to take a mission-class in the same school with herself? How lovely and angelic she had once appeared, stooping in elegant costume from her social height to the little ragamuffins of the street that sat gaping around her! As he gazed adoringly, while waiting to be her resort home, his young heart had swelled with the impulse to be good and noble also.
But one day she caused him to drop out of his roseate clouds. With much sweetness and resignation, and with appropriate sighs, she said that "it was her painful duty to tell him that their intimacy must cease—that she had received an offer from Mr. Grobb, and that her parents, and indeed all her friends, had urged her to accept him. She had been led to feel that they with their riper experience and knowledge of life knew what was best for her, and therefore she had yielded to their wishes and accepted the offer." She was beginning to add, in a sentimental tone, that "had she only followed the impulses of her heart"—when Gregory, at first too stunned and bewildered to speak, recovered his senses and interrupted with, "Please don't speak of your heart, Miss Bently. Why mention so small a matter? Go on with your little transaction by all means. I am a business man myself, and can readily understand your motives;" and he turned on his heel and strode from the room, leaving Miss Bently ill at ease.
The young man's first expression of having received, as it were, a staggering blow, and then his bitter satire, made an impression on her cotton-and-wool nature, and for a time her proceedings with Mr. Grobb did not wear the aspect in which they had been presented by her friends. But her little world so confidently and continually reiterated the statement that she was making a "splendid match" that her qualms vanished, and she felt that what all asserted must be true, and so entered on the gorgeous preparations as if the wedding were all and the man nothing.
It is the custom to satirize or bitterly denounce such girls, but perhaps they are rather to be pitied. They are the natural products of artificial society, wherein wealth, show, and the social eminence which is based on dress and establishment are held out as the prizes of a woman's existence. The only wonder is that so much heart and truth assert themselves among those who all their life have seen wealth practically worshipped, and worth, ungilded, generally ignored. From ultra-fashionable circles a girl is often seen developing into the noblest womanhood; while narrow, mercenary natures are often found where far better things might have been expected. If such girls as Miss Bently could only be kept in quiet obscurity, like a bale of merchandise, till wanted, it would not be so bad; but some of them are such brilliant belles and incorrigible coquettes that they are like certain Wall Street speculators who threaten to "break the street" in making their own fortunes.
Some natures can receive a fair lady's refusal with a good-natured shrug, as merely the result of a bad venture, and hope for better luck next time; but to a greater number this is impossible, especially if they are played with and deceived. Walter Gregory pre-eminently belonged to the latter class. In early life he had breathed the very atmosphere of truth, and his tendency to sincerity ever remained the best element of his character. His was one of those fine-fibred natures most susceptible to injury. Up to this time his indiscretions had only been those of foolish, thoughtless youth, while aiming at the standard of manliness and style in vogue among his city companions. High-spirited young fellows, not early braced by principle, must pass through this phase as in babyhood they cut their teeth. If there is true mettle in them, and they are not perverted by exceptionally bad influences, they outgrow the idea that to be fast and foolish is to be men as naturally as they do their roundabouts.
What a man does is often not so important as the state of the heart that prompts the act. In common parlance, Walter was as good-hearted a fellow as ever breathed. Indeed, he was really inclined to noble enthusiasms.
If Miss Bently had been what he imagined her, she might have led him swiftly and surely into true manhood; but she was only an adept at pretty seeming with him, and when Mr. Grobb offered her his vast wealth, with himself as the only incumbrance, she acted promptly and characteristically.
But perhaps it can be safely said that in no den of iniquity in the city could Walter Gregory have received such moral injury as poisoned his very soul when, in Mr. Bently's elegant and respectable parlor, the "angel" he worshipped "explained how she was situated," and from a "sense of duty" stated her purpose to yield to the wishes of her friends. Gregory had often seen Mr. Grobb, but had given him no thought, supposing him some elderly relative of the family. That this was the accepted suitor of the girl who had, with tender, meaning glances, sung for him sentimental ballads, who had sweetly talked to him of religion and mission work, seemed a monstrous perversion. Call it unjust, unreasonable, if you will, yet it was the most natural thing in the world for one possessing his sensitive, intense nature to pass into harsh, bitter cynicism, and to regard Miss Bently as a typical girl of the period.
A young man is far on the road to evil when he loses faith in woman. During the formative period of character she is, of earthly influences, the most potent in making or marring him. A kind refusal, where no false encouragement has been given, often does a man good, and leaves his faith intact; but an experience similar to that of young Gregory is like putting into a fountain that which may stain and embitter the waters of the stream in all its length.
At the early age of twenty-two he became what is usually understood by the phrase "a man of the world." Still his moral nature could not sink into the depths without many a bitter outcry against its wrongs. It was with no slight effort that he drowned the memory of his early home and its good influences. During the first two or three years he occasionally had periods of passionate remorse, and made spasmodic efforts toward better things. But they were made in human strength, and in view of the penalties of evil, rather than because he was enamored of the right. Some special temptation would soon sweep him away into the old life, and thus, because of his broken promises and repeated failures, he at last lost faith in himself also, and lacked that self-respect without which no man can cope successfully with his evil nature and an evil world.
Living in a boarding-house, with none of the restraints and purifying influences of a good home, he formed intimacies with brilliant but unscrupulous young men. The theatre became his church, and at last the code of his fast, fashionable set was that which governed his life. He avoided gross, vulgar dissipation, both because his nature revolted at it, and also on account of his purpose to permit nothing to interfere with his prospects of advancement in business. He meant to show Miss Bently that she had made a bad business speculation after all. Thus ambition became the controlling element in his character; and he might have had a worse one. Moreover, in all his moral debasement he never lost a decided tendency toward truthfulness and honesty. He would have starved rather than touch anything that did not belong to him, nor would he allow himself to deceive in matters of business, and it was upon these points that he specially prided himself.
Gregory's unusual business ability, coupled with his knowledge of French and German, led to his being sent abroad as agent of his firm. Five years of life in the materialistic and sceptical atmosphere of continental cities confirmed the evil tendencies which were only too well developed before he left his own land. He became what so many appear to be in our day, a practical materialist and atheist. Present life and surroundings, present profit and pleasure, were all in all. He ceased to recognize the existence of a soul within himself having distinct needs and interests. His thoughts centred wholly in the comfort and pleasures of the day and in that which would advance his ambitious schemes. His scepticism was not intellectual and in reference to the Bible and its teachings, but practical and in reference to humanity itself. He believed that with few exceptions men and women lived for their own profit and pleasure, and that religion and creeds were matters of custom and fashion, or an accident of birth. Only the reverence in which religion had been held in his early home kept him from sharing fully in the contempt which the gentlemen he met abroad seemed to have for it. He could not altogether despise his mother's faith, but he regarded her as a gentle enthusiast haunted by sacred traditions. The companionships which he had formed led him to believe that unless influenced by some interested motive a liberal-minded man of the world must of necessity outgrow these things. With the self-deception of his kind, he thought he was broad and liberal in his views, when in reality he had lost all distinction between truth and error, and was narrowing his mind down to things only. Jew or Gentile, Christian or Pagan, it was becoming all one to him. Men changed their creeds and religions with other fashions, but all looked after what they believed to be the main chance, and he proposed to do the same.
As time passed on, however, he began to admit to himself that it was strange that in making all things bend to his pleasure he did not secure more. He wearied of certain things. Stronger excitements were needed to spur his jaded senses. His bets, his stakes at cards grew heavier, his pleasures more gross, till a delicate organization so revolted at its wrongs and so chastised him for excess that he was deterred from self-gratification in that direction.
Some men's bodies are a "means of grace" to them. Coarse dissipation is a physical impossibility, or swift suicide in a very painful form. Young Gregory found that only in the excitements of the mind could he hope to find continued enjoyment. His ambition to accumulate wealth and become a brilliant business man most accorded with his tastes and training, and on these objects he gradually concentrated all his energies, seeking only in club-rooms and places of fashionable resort recreation from the strain of business.
He recognized that the best way to advance his own interests was to serve his employers well; and this he did so effectually that at last he was made a partner in the business, and, with a sense of something more like pleasure than he had known for a long time, returned to New York and entered upon his new duties.
As we have said, among those who warmly greeted and congratulated him, was Mr. Hunting. They gradually came to spend much time together, and business and money-getting were their favorite themes. Gregory saw that his friend was as keen on the track of fortune as himself, and that he had apparently been much more successful. Mr. Hunting intimated that after one reached the charmed inner circle Wall Street was a perfect Eldorado, and seemed to take pains to drop occasional suggestions as to how an investment shrewdly made by one with his favored point of observation often secured in a day a larger return than a year of plodding business.
These remarks were not lost on Gregory, and the wish became very strong that he might share in some of the splendid "hits" by which his friend was accumulating so rapidly.
Usually Mr. Hunting was very quiet and self-possessed, but one evening in May he came into Gregory's rooms in a manner indicating not a little excitement and elation.
"Gregory!" he exclaimed, "I am going to make my fortune."
"Make your fortune! You are as rich as Croesus now."
"The past will be as nothing. I've struck a mine rather than a vein."
"It's a pity some of your friends could not share in your luck."
"Well, a few can. This is so large, and such a good thing, that I have concluded to let a few intimates go in with me. Only all must keep very quiet about it;" and he proposed an operation that seemed certain of success as he explained it.
Gregory concluded to put into it nearly all he had independent of his investment in the firm, and also obtained permission to interest his partners, and to procure an interview between them and Mr. Hunting.
The scheme looked so very plausible that they were drawn into it also; but Mr. Burnett took Gregory aside and said: "After all, we must place a great deal of confidence in Mr. Hunting's word in this matter. Are you satisfied that we can safely do so?"
"I would stake my life on his word in this case," said Gregory, eagerly, "and I pledge all I have put in the firm on his truth."
This was the last flicker of his old enthusiasm and trust in anybody or anything, including himself. With almost the skill of genius Mr. Hunting adroitly, within the limits of the law, swindled them all, and made a vast profit out of their losses. The transaction was not generally known, but even some of the hardened gamblers of the street said "it was too bad."
But the bank-officers with whom Burnett & Co. did business knew about it, and if it had not been for their lenience and aid the firm would have failed. As it was, it required a struggle of months to regain the solid ground of safety.
At first the firm was suspicious of Gregory, and disposed to blame him very much. But when he proved to them that he had lost his private means by Hunting's treachery, and insisted on making over to them all his right and title to the property he had invested with them, they saw that he was no confederate of the swindler, but that he had suffered more than any of them.
He had, indeed. He had lost his ambition. The large sum of money that was to be the basis of the immense fortune he had hoped to amass was gone. He had greatly prided himself on his business ability, but had signalized his entrance on his new and responsible position by being overreached and swindled in a transaction that had impoverished himself and almost ruined his partners. He grew very misanthropic, and was quite as bitter against himself as against others. In his estimation people were either cloaking their evil or had not been tempted, and he felt after Hunting dropped the mask that he would never trust any one again.
It may be said, all this is very unreasonable. Yes, it is; but then people will judge the world by their own experience of it, and some natures are more easily warped by wrong than others. No logic can cope with feeling and prejudice. Because of his own misguided life and the wrong he had received from others, Walter Gregory was no more able to form a correct estimate of society than one color-blind is to judge of the tints of flowers. And yet he belonged to that class who claim pre-eminently to know the world. Because he thought he knew it so well he hated and despised it, and himself as part of it.
The months that followed his great and sudden downfall dragged their slow length along. He worked early and late, without thought of sparing himself. If he could only see what the firm had lost through him made good, he did not care what became of himself. Why should he? There was little in the present to interest him, and the future looked, in his depressed, morbid state, as monotonous and barren as the sands of a desert. Seemingly, he had exhausted life, and it had lost all zest for him.
But while his power to enjoy had gone, not so his power to suffer. His conscience was uneasy, and told him in a vague way that something was wrong. Reason, or, more correctly speaking, instinct, condemned his life as a wretched blunder. He had lived for his own enjoyment, and now, when but half through life, what was there for him to enjoy?
As in increasing weakness he dragged himself to the office on a sultry September day, the thought occurred to him that the end was nearer than he expected.
"Let it come," he said, bitterly. "Why should I live?"
The thought of his early home recurred to him with increasing frequency, and he had a growing desire to visit it before his strength failed utterly. Therefore it was with a certain melancholy pleasure that he found himself at liberty, through the kindness of his partners, to make this visit, and at the season, too, when his boyish memories of the place, like the foliage, would be most varied and vivid.
CHAPTER II
OPENING A CHESTNUT BURR
If the reader could imagine a man visiting his own grave, he might obtain some idea of Walter Gregory's feelings as he took the boat which would land him not far from his early home. And yet, so different was he from the boy who had left that home fifteen years before, that it was almost the same as if he were visiting the grave of a brother who had died in youth.
Though the day was mild, a fresh bracing wind blew from the west. Shielding himself from this on the after-deck, he half reclined, on account of his weakness, in a position from which he could see the shores and passing vessels upon the river. The swift gliding motion, the beautiful and familiar scenery, the sense of freedom from routine work, and the crisp, pure air, that seemed like a delicate wine, all combined to form a mystic lever that began to lift his heart out of the depths of despondency.
A storm had passed away, leaving not a trace. The October sun shone in undimmed splendor, and all nature appeared to rejoice in its light. The waves with their silver crests seemed chasing one another in mad glee. The sailing vessels, as they tacked to and fro across the river under the stiff western breeze, made the water foam about their blunt prows, and the white-winged gulls wheeled in graceful circles overhead. There was a sense of movement and life that was contagious. Gregory's dull eyes kindled with something like interest, and then he thought: "The storm lowered over these sunny shores yesterday. The gloom of night rested upon these waters but a few hours since. Why is it that nature can smile and be glad the moment the shadow passes and I cannot? Is there no sunlight for the soul? I seem as if entering a cave, that grows colder and darker at every step, and no gleam shines at the further end, indicating that I may pass through it and out into the light again."
Thus letting his fancy wander at will, at times half-dreaming and half-waking, he passed the hours that elapsed before the boat touched at a point in the Highlands of the Hudson, his destination. Making a better dinner than he had enjoyed for a long time, and feeling stronger than for weeks before, he started for the place that now, of all the world, had for him the greatest attraction.
There was no marked change in the foliage as yet, but only a deepening of color, like a flush on the cheek of beauty. As he was driving along the familiar road, farm-house and grove, and even tree, rock, and thicket, began to greet him as with the faces of old friends. At last he saw, nestling in a wild, picturesque valley, the quaint outline of his former home. His heart yearned toward it, and he felt that next to his mother's face no other object could be so welcome.
"Slower, please," he said to the driver.
Though his eyes were moist, and at times dim with tears, not a feature in the scene escaped him. When near the gateway he sprung out with a lightness that he would not have believed possible the day before, and said, "Come for me at five."
For a little time he stood leaning on the gate. Two children were playing on the lawn, and it almost seemed to him that the elder, a boy of about ten years, might be himself, and he a passing stranger, who had merely stopped to look at the pretty scene.
"Oh that I were a boy like that one there! Oh that I were here again as of old!" he sighed. "How unchanged it all is, and I so changed! It seems as if the past were mocking me. That must be I there playing with my little sister. Mother must be sewing in her cheery south room, and father surely is taking his after-dinner nap in the library. Can it be that they are all dead save me? and that this is but a beautiful mirage?"
He felt that he could not meet any one until he became more composed, and so passed on up the valley. Before turning away he noticed that a lady come out at the front door. The children joined her, and they started for a walk.
Looking wistfully on either side, Gregory soon came to a point where the orchard extended to the road. A well-remembered fall pippin tree hung its laden boughs over the fence, and the fruit looked so ripe and golden in the slanting rays of October sunlight that he determined to try one of the apples and see if it tasted as of old. As he climbed upon the wall a loose stone fell clattering down and rolled into the road. He did not notice this, but an old man dozing in the porch of a little house opposite did. As Gregory reached up his cane to detach from its spray a great, yellow-cheeked fellow, his hand was arrested, and he was almost startled off his perch by such a volley of oaths as shocked even his hardened ears. Turning gingerly around so as not to lose his footing, he faced this masked battery that had opened so unexpectedly upon him, and saw a white-haired old man balancing himself on one crutch and brandishing the other at him.
"Stop knockin' down that wall and fillin! the road with stuns, you—," shouted the venerable man, in tones that indicated anything but the calmness of age. "Let John Walton's apples alone, you—thief. What do you mean by robbin' in broad daylight, right under a man's nose?"
Gregory saw that he had a character to deal with, and, to divert his mind from thoughts that were growing too painful, determined to draw the old man out; so he said, "Is not taking things so openly a rather honest way of robbing?"
"Git down, I tell yer," cried the guardian of the orchard.
"Suppose 'tis, it's robbin' arter all. So now move on, and none of yer cussed impudence."
"But you call them John Walton's apples," said Gregory, eating one with provoking coolness. "What have you got to do with them? and why should you care?"
"Now look here, stranger, you're an infernal mean cuss to ask such questions. Ain't John Walton my neighbor? and a good neighbor, too? D'ye suppose a well-meanin' man like myself would stand by and see a neighbor robbed? and of all others, John Walton? Don't you know that robbin' a good man brings bad luck, you thunderin' fool?"
"But I've always had bad luck, so I needn't stop on that account," retorted Gregory, from the fence.
"I believe it, and you allers will," vociferated the old man, "and I'll tell yer why. I know from the cut of yer jib that yer've allers been eatin' forbidden fruit. If yer lived now a good square life like 'Squire Walton and me, you'd have no reason to complain of yer luck. If I could get a clip at yer with this crutch I'd give yer suthin' else to complain of. If yer had any decency yer wouldn't stand there a jibin' at a lame old man."
Gregory took off his hat with a polite bow and said: "I beg your pardon; I was under the impression that you were doing the 'cussing.' I shall come and see you soon, for somehow it does me good to have you swear at me. I only wish I had as good a friend in the world as Mr. Walton has in you." With these words he sprung from the fence on the orchard side, and made his way to the hill behind the Walton residence, leaving the old man mumbling and muttering in a very profane manner.
"Like enough it was somebody visitin' at the Walton's, and I've made a—fool of myself after all. What's worse, that poor little Miss Eulie will hear I've been swearin' agin, and there'll be another awful prayin' time. What a cussed old fool I be, to promise to quit swearin'! I know I can't. What's the good o' stoppin'? It's inside, and might as well come out. The Lord knows I don't mean no disrespect to Him. It's only one of my ways. He knows well enough that I'm a good neighbor, and what's the harm in a little cussin'?" and so the strange old man talked on to himself in the intervals between long pulls at his pipe.
By the time Gregory reached the top of the hill his strength was quite exhausted, and, panting, he sat down on the sunny side of a thicket of cedars, for the late afternoon was growing chilly. Beneath him lay the one oasis in a desert world.
With an indescribable blending of pleasure and pain, he found himself tracing with his eye every well-remembered path, and marking every familiar object.
Not a breath of air was stirring, and it would seem that Nature was seeking to impart to his perturbed spirit, full of the restless movement of city life and the inevitable disquiet of sin, something of her own calmness and peace. The only sounds he heard seemed a part of nature's silence,—the tinkle of cowbells, the slumberous monotone of water as it fell over the dam, the grating notes of a katydid, rendered hoarse by recent cool nights, in a shady ravine near by, and a black cricket chirping at the edge of the rock on which he sat—these were all. And yet the sounds, though not heard for years, seemed as familiar as the mother's lullaby that puts a child to sleep, and a delicious sense of restfulness stole into his heart. The world in which he had so greatly sinned and suffered might be another planet, it seemed so far away. Could it be that in a few short hours he had escaped out of the hurry and grind of New York into this sheltered nook? Why had he not come before? Here was the remedy for soul and body, if any existed.
Not a person was visible on the place, and it seemed that it might thus have been awaiting him in all his absence, and that now he had only to go and take possession.
"So our home in heaven awaits us, mother used to say," he thought, "while we are such willing exiles from it. I would give all the world to believe as she did."
He found that the place so inseparably associated with his mother brought back her teachings, which he had so often tried to forget.
"I wish I might bury myself here, away from the world," he muttered, "for it has only cheated and lied to me from first to last. Everything deceived me, and turned out differently from what I expected. These loved old scenes are true and unchanged, and smile upon me now as when I was here a happy boy. Would to heaven I might never leave them again!"
He was startled out of his revery by the sharp bark of a squirrel that ran chattering and whisking its tail in great excitement from limb to limb in a clump of chestnuts near. The crackling of a twig betrayed to Gregory the cause of its alarm, for through an opening in the thicket he saw the lady who had started out for a walk with the children while he was leaning on the front gate.
Shrinking further behind the cedars he proposed to reconnoitre a little before making himself known. He observed that she was attired in a dark, close-fitting costume suitable for rambling among the hills. At first he thought that she was pretty, and then that she was not. His quick, critical eye detected that her features were not regular, that her profile was not classic. It was only the rich glow of exercise and the jaunty gypsy hat that had given the first impression of something like beauty. In her right hand, which was ungloved, she daintily held, by its short stem, a chestnut burr which the squirrel in its alarm had dropped, and now, in its own shrill vernacular, was scolding about so vociferously. She was glancing around for some means to break it open, and Gregory had scarcely time to notice her fine dark eyes, when, as if remembering the rock on which he had been sitting, she advanced toward him with a step so quick and elastic that he envied her vigor.
Further concealment was now impossible. Therefore with easy politeness he stepped forward and said: "Let me open the burr for you, Miss Walton."
She started violently at the sound of his voice, and for a moment reminded him of a frightened bird on the eve of flight.
"Pardon me for so alarming you," he hastened to say, "and also pardon a seeming stranger for addressing you informally. My name may not be unknown to you, although I am in person. It is Walter Gregory."
She had been so startled that she could not immediately recover herself, and still stood regarding him doubtfully, although with manner more assured.
"Come," said he, smiling and advancing toward her with the quiet assurance of a society man. "Let me open the burr for you, and you shall take its contents in confirmation of what I say. If I find sound chestnuts in it, let them be a token that I am not misrepresenting myself. If my test fails, then you may justly ask for better credentials."
Half smiling, and quite satisfied from his words and appearance in advance, she extended the burr toward him. But as she did so it parted from the stem, and would have fallen to the ground had he not, with his ungloved hand, caught the prickly thing. His hand was as white and soft as hers, and the sharp spines stung him sorely, yet he permitted no sign of pain to appear upon his face.
"Ah!" exclaimed Miss Walton, "I fear it hurt you."
He looked up humorously and said, "An augury is a solemn affair, and no disrespect must be allowed to nature's oracle, which in this case is a chestnut burr;" and he speedily opened it.
"There!" he said, triumphantly, "what more could you ask? Here are two solid, plump chestnuts, with only a false, empty form of shell between them. And here, like the solid nuts, are two people entitled to each other's acquaintance, with only the false formality of an introduction, like the empty shell, keeping them apart. Since no mutual friend is present to introduce us, has not Nature taken upon herself the office through this chestnut burr? But perhaps I should further Nature's efforts by giving you my card."
As Miss Walton regained composure, she soon proved to Gregory that she was not merely a shy country girl. At the close of his rather long and fanciful speech she said, genially, extending her hand: "My love for Nature is unbounded, Mr. Gregory, and the introduction you have so happily obtained from her weighs more with me than any other that you could have had. Let me welcome you to your own home, as it were. But see, your hand is bleeding, where the burr pricked you. Is this an omen, also? If our first meeting brings bloody wounds, I fear you will shun further acquaintance."
There was a spice of bitterness in Gregory's laugh, as he said: "People don't often die of such wounds. But it is a little odd that in taking your hand I should stain it with my blood. I am inclined to drop the burr after all, and base all my claims on my practical visiting card. You may come to look upon the burr as a warning, rather than an introduction, and order me off the premises."
"It was an omen of your choice," replied Miss Walton, laughing. "You have more to fear from it than I. If you will venture to stay you shall be most welcome. Indeed, it almost seems that you have a better right here than we, and your name has been so often heard that you are no stranger. I know father will be very glad to see you, for he often speaks of you, and wonders if you are like his old friend, the dearest one, I think, he ever had. How long have you been here?"
"Well, I have been wandering about the place much of the afternoon."
"I need not ask you why you did not come in at once," she said, gently. "Seeing your old home after so long an absence is like meeting some dear friend. One naturally wishes to be alone for a time. But now I hope you will go home with me."
He was surprised at her delicate appreciation of his feelings, and gave her a quick pleased look, saying: "Nature has taught you to be a good interpreter, Miss Walton. You are right. The memories of the old place were a little too much for me at first, and I did not know that those whom I met would appreciate my feelings so delicately."
The two children now appeared, running around the brow of the hill, the boy calling in great excitement: "Aunt Annie, oh! Aunt Annie, we've found a squirrel-hole. We chased him into it. Can't Susie sit by the hole and keep him in, while I go for a spade to dig him out?"
Then they saw the unlooked-for stranger, who at once rivalled the squirrel-hole in interest, and with slower steps, and curious glances, they approached.
"These are my sister's children," said Miss Walton, simply.
Gregory kindly took the boy by the hand, and kissed the little girl, who looked half-frightened and half-pleased, as a very little maiden should, while she rubbed the cheek that his mustache had tickled.
"Do you think we can get the squirrel, Aunt Annie?" again asked the boy.
"Do you think it would be right, Johnny, if you could?" she asked. "Suppose you were the squirrel in the hole, and one big monster, like Susie here, should sit by the door, and you heard another big monster say, 'Wait till I get something to tear open his house with.' How would you feel?"
"I won't keep the poor little squirrel in his hole," said sympathetic
Susie.
But the boy's brow contracted, and he said, sternly: "Squirrels are nothing but robbers, and their holes are robbers' dens. They take half our nuts every year."
Miss Walton looked significantly at Gregory, and laughed, saying,
"There it is, you see, man and woman."
A momentary shadow crossed his face, and he said, abruptly, "I hope
Susie will be as kindly in coming years."
Miss Walton looked at him curiously as they began to descend the hill to the house. She evidently did not understand his remark, coupled with his manner.
As they approached the barn there was great excitement among the poultry. Passing round its angle, Walter saw coming toward them a quaint-looking old woman, in what appeared to be a white scalloped nightcap. She had a pan of corn in her hand, and was attended by a retinue that would have rejoiced an epicure's heart. Chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, and Guinea fowls thronged around and after her with an intentness on the grain and a disregard of one another's rights and feelings that reminded one unpleasantly of political aspirants just after a Presidential election. Johnny made a dive for an old gobbler, and the great red-wattled bird dropped his wings and seemed inclined to show fight, but a reluctant armistice was brought about between them by the old woman screaming: "Maister Johnny, an' ye let not the fowls alone ye'll ha' na apples roast the night."
Susie clung timidly to her aunty's side as they passed through these clamorous candidates for holiday honors, and the young lady said, kindly, "You have a large family to look after, Zibbie, but I'm afraid we'll lessen it every day now."
"Indeed, an' ye will, and it goes agin the grain to wring the necks of them that I've nursed from the shell," said the old woman, rather sharply.
"It must be a great trial to your feelings," said Miss Walton, laughing; "but what would you have us do with them, Zibbie? You don't need them all for pets."
Before Zibbie could answer, an old gentleman in a low buggy drove into the large door-yard, and the children bounded toward him, screaming, "Grandpa."
A colored man took the horse, and Mr. Walton, with a briskness that one would not expect at his advanced age, came toward them.
He was a noble-looking old man, with hair and beard as white as snow, and with the stately manners of the old school. When he learned who Gregory was he greeted him with a cordiality that was so genuine as to compel the cynical man of the world to feel its truth.
Mr. Walton's eyes were turned so often and wistfully on his face that
Gregory was embarrassed.
"I was looking for my friend," said the old gentleman, in a husky voice, turning hastily away to hide his feeling. "You strongly remind me of him; and yet—" But he never finished the sentence.
Gregory well understood the "and yet," and in bitterness of soul remembered that his father had been a good man, but that the impress of goodness could not rest on his face.
He had now grown very weary, and gave evidence of it.
"Mr. Gregory, you look ill," said Miss Walton, hastily.
"I am not well," he said, "and have not been for a long time. Perhaps I am going beyond my strength to-day."
In a moment they were all solicitude. The driver, who then appeared according to his instructions, was posted back to the hotel for Mr. Gregory's luggage, Mr. Walton saying, with hearty emphasis that removed every scruple, "This must be your home, sir, as long as you can remain with us, as truly as ever it was."
A little later he found himself in the "spare room," on whose state he had rarely intruded when a boy. Jeff, the colored man, had kindled a cheery wood fire on the ample hearth, and, too exhausted even to think, Gregory sank back in a great easy-chair with the blessed sense of the storm-tossed on reaching a quiet haven.
CHAPTER III
MORBID BROODING
To the millions who are suffering in mind or body there certainly come in this world moments of repose, when pain ceases; and the respite seems so delicious in contrast that it may well suggest the "rest that remaineth." Thinking of neither the past nor the future, Gregory for a little time gave himself up to the sense of present and luxurious comfort. With closed eyes and mind almost as quiet as his motionless body, he let the moments pass, feeling dimly that he would ask no better heaven than the eternal continuance of this painless, half-dreaming lethargy.
He was soon aroused, however, by a knocking at the door, and a middle-aged servant placed before him a tempting plate of Albert biscuit and a glass of home-made currant wine of indefinite age. The quaint and dainty little lunch caught his appetite as exactly as if manna had fallen adapted to his need; but it soon stimulated him out of his condition of partial non-existence. With returning consciousness of the necessity of living and acting came the strong desire to spend as much of his vacation as possible in his old home, and he determined to avail himself of Mr. Walton's invitation to the utmost limit that etiquette would permit.
His awakened mind gave but little thought to his entertainers, and he did not anticipate much pleasure from their society. He was satisfied that they were refined, cultivated people, with whom he could be as much at ease as would be possible in any companionship, but he hoped and proposed to spend the most of his time alone in wandering amid old scenes and brooding over the past. The morbid mind is ever full of unnatural contradictions, and he found a melancholy pleasure in shutting his eyes to the future and recalling the time when he had been happy and hopeful. In his egotism he found more that interested him in his past and vanished self than in the surrounding world. Evil and ill-health had so enfeebled his body, narrowed his mind, and blurred the future, that his best solace seemed a vain and sentimental recalling of the crude yet comparatively happy period of childhood.
This is sorry progress. A man must indeed have lived radically wrong when he looks backward for the best of his life. Gray-haired Mr. Walton was looking forward. Gregory's habit of self-pleasing—of acting according to his mood—was too deeply seated to permit even the thought of returning the hospitality he hoped to enjoy by a cordial effort on his part to prove himself an agreeable guest. Polite he ever would be, for he had the instincts and training of a gentleman, in society's interpretation of the word, but he had lost the power to feel a generous solicitude for the feelings and happiness of others. Indeed, he rather took a cynical pleasure in discovering defects in the character of those around him, and in learning that their seeming enjoyment of life was but hollow and partial. Conscious of being evil himself, he liked to think others were not much better, or would not be if tempted. Therefore, with a gloomy scepticism, he questioned all the seeming happiness and goodness he saw. "It is either unreal or untried," he was wont to say bitterly.
About seven o'clock, Hannah, the waitress, again appeared, saying: "Supper is ready, but the ladies beg you will not come down unless you feel able. I can bring up your tea if you wish."
Thinking first and only of self, he at once decided not to go down. He felt sufficiently rested and revived, but was in no mood for commonplace talk to comparative strangers. His cosey chair, glowing fire, and listless ease were much better than noisy children, inquisitive ladies, and the unconscious reproach of Mr. Walton's face, as he would look in vain for the lineaments of his lost friend. Therefore he said, suavely: "Please say to the ladies that I am so wearied that I should make but a dull companion, and so for their sakes, as well as my own, had better not leave my room this evening."
It is the perfection of art in selfishness to make it appear as if you were thinking only of others. This was the design of Walter's polite message. Soon a bit of tender steak, a roast potato, tea, and toast were smoking appetizingly beside him, and he congratulated himself that he had escaped the bore of company for one evening.
Notwithstanding his misanthropy and cherished desolation the supper was so inviting that he was tempted to partake of it heartily. Then incasing himself in his ample dressing-gown he placed his slippered feet on the fender before a cheery fire, lighted a choice Havana, and proceeded to be miserable after the fashion that indulged misery often affects.
Hannah quietly removed the tea-tray, and Mr. Walton came up and courteously inquired if there was anything that would add to his guest's comfort.
"After a few hours of rest and quiet I hope I shall be able to make a better return for your hospitality," Gregory rejoined, with equal politeness.
"Oh, do not feel under any obligation to exert yourself," said kind Mr. Walton. "In order to derive full benefit from your vacation, you must simply rest and follow your moods."
This view of the case suited Gregory exactly, and the prospect of a visit at his old home grew still more inviting. When he was left alone, he gave himself up wholly to the memories of the past.
At first it was with a pleasurable pain that he recalled his former life. With an imagination naturally strong he lived it all over again, from the date of his first recollections. In the curling flames and glowing coals on the hearth a panorama passed before him. He saw a joyous child, a light-hearted boy, and a sanguine youth, with the shifting and familiar scenery of well-remembered experience. Time softened the pictures, and the harsh, rough outlines which exist in every truthful portraiture of life were lost in the haze of distance. The gentle but steady light of mother love, and through her a pale, half-recognized reflection of the love of God, illumined all those years; and his father's strong, quiet affection made a background anything but dark. He had been naturally what is termed a very good boy, full of generous impulses. There had been no lack of ordinary waywardness or of the faults of youth, but they showed a tendency to yield readily to the correcting influence of love. Good impulses, however, are not principles, and may give way to stronger impulses of evil. If the influences of his early home had alone followed him, he would not now be moodily recalling the past as the exiled convict might watch the shores of his native land recede.
And then, as in his prolonged revery the fire burned low, and the ruddy coals turned to ashes, the past faded into distance, and his present life, dull and leaden, rose before him, and from regretful memories that were not wholly painful he passed to that bitterness of feeling which ever comes when hope is giving place to despair.
The fire flickered out and died, his head drooped lower and lower, while the brooding frown upon his brow darkened almost into a scowl. Outwardly he made a sad picture for a young man in the prime of life, but to Him who looks at the attitude of the soul, what but unutterable love kept him from appearing absolutely revolting?
Suddenly, like light breaking into a vault a few notes of prelude were struck upon the piano in the parlor below, and a sweet voice, softened by distance sung:
"Rock of ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in thee,"
How often he had heard the familiar words and music in that same home! They seemed to crown and complete all the memories of the place, but they reminded him more clearly than ever before that its most inseparable associations were holy, hopeful, and suggestive of a faith that he seemed to have lost as utterly as if it had been a gem dropped into the ocean.
He had lived in foreign lands far from his birthplace, but the purpose to return ever dwelt pleasurably in his mind. But how could he cross the gulf that yawned between him and the faith of his childhood? Was there really anything beyond that gulf save what the credulous imagination had created? Instinctively he felt that there was, for he was honest enough with himself to remember that his scepticism was the result of an evil life and the influence of an unbelieving world, rather than the outcome of patient investigation. The wish was father to the thought.
Yet sweet, unfaltering, and clear as the voice of faith ever should be, the hymn went forward in the room below, his memory supplying the well-known words that were lost from remoteness:—
"When mine eyelids close in death,
When I soar to worlds unknown."
"Oh, when!" he exclaimed, bitterly. "What shall be my experience then? If I continue to fail in health as I have of late I shall know cursedly soon. That must be Miss Walton singing. Though she does not realize it, to me this is almost as cruel mockery as if an angel sang at the gates of hell."
The music ceased, and the monotone of one reading followed.
"Family prayers as of old," he muttered. "How everything conspires to-day to bring my home-life back again! and yet there is a fatal lack of something that is harder to endure than the absence of my own kindred and vanished youth. I doubt whether I can stay here long after all. Will not the mocking fable of Tantalus be repeated constantly, as I see others drinking daily at a fountain which though apparently so near is ever beyond my reach?"
Shivering with the chill of the night and the deeper chill at heart, he retired to troubled sleep.
CHAPTER IV
HOW MISS WALTON MANAGED PEOPLE
Rest, and the sunny light and bracing air of the following morning, banished much of Gregory's moodiness, and he descended the stairs proposing to dismiss painful thoughts and get what comfort and semblance of enjoyment he could out of the passing hours. Mr. Walton met him cordially—indeed with almost fatherly solicitude—and led him at once to the dining-room, where an inviting breakfast awaited them. Miss Walton also was genial, and introduced Miss Eulalia Morton, a maiden sister of her mother. Miss Eulie, as she was familiarly called, was a pale, delicate little lady, with a face sweetened rather than hardened and imbittered by time. If, as some believe, the flesh and the spirit, the soul and the body, are ever at variance, she gave the impression at first glance that the body was getting the worst of the conflict. But in truth the faintest thoughts of strife seemed to have no association with her whatever. She appeared so light and aerial that one could imagine her flying over the rough places of life, and vanishing when any one opposed her.
Miss Walton reversed all this, for she was decidedly substantial. She was of only medium height, but a fine figure made her appear taller than she was. She immediately gave the impression of power and reserve force. You felt this in her quick, elastic step, saw it in her decided though not abrupt movements, and heard it in her tone. Even the nonchalant Mr. Gregory could not ignore her in his customary polite manner, though quiet refinement and peculiar unobtrusiveness seemed her characteristics. She won attention, not because she sought it, nor on the ground of eccentricities, but because of her intense vitality. From her dark eyes a close observer might catch glimpses of a quick, active mind, an eager spirit, and—well, perhaps a passionate temper. Though chastened and subdued, she ever gave the impression of power to those who came to know her well. In certain ways, as they interpreted her, people acknowledged this force of character. Some spoke of her as very lively, others as exceedingly energetic and willing to enter on any good work. Some thought her ambitious, else why was she so prominent in church matters, and so ready to visit the sick and poor? They could explain this in but one way. And some looked knowingly at each other and said: "I wonder if she is always as smiling and sweet as when in society;" and then followed shaking of heads which intimated, "Look out for sudden gusts."
Again, as in simple morning wrapper she turned to greet Gregory, she gave him the impression of something like beauty. But his taste, rendered critical by much observation both at home and abroad, at once told him that he was mistaken.
"The expression is well enough," he thought, "but she has not a single perfect feature—not one that an artist would copy, except perhaps the eyes, and even they are not soft and Madonna-like."
He had a sybarite's eye for beauty, and an intense admiration for it. At the same time he was too intellectual to be satisfied with the mere sensuous type. And yet, when he decided that a woman was not pretty, she ceased to interest him. His exacting taste required no small degree of outward perfection crowned by ready wit and society polish. With those so endowed he had frequently amused himself in New York and Paris by a passing flirtation since the politic Miss Bently had made him a sceptic in regard to women. All his intercourse with society had confirmed his cynicism. The most beautiful and brilliant in the drawing-rooms were seldom the best. He flattered them to their faces and sneered at them in his heart. Therefore his attentions were merely of a nature to excite their vanity, stimulated by much incense from other sources. He saw this plainly manifested trait, which he contributed to develop, and despised it. He also saw that many were as eager for a good match as ever the adored Miss Bently had been, and that, while they liked his compliments, they cared not for him. Why should they? Insincere and selfish himself, why should he expect to awaken better feelings on the part of those who were anything but unsophisticated, and from knowledge of the world could gauge him at his true worth? Not even a sentimental girl would show her heart to such a man. And yet with the blind egotism of selfishness he smiled grimly at their apparent heartlessness and said, "Such is woman."
At the same time it must in justice be said that he despised men in general quite as sincerely. "Human nature is wretched stuff," had come to be the first article in his creed.
In regard to Miss Walton he concluded: "She is a goodish girl, more of a lady than the average, pious and orthodox, an excellent housekeeper, and a great comfort to her father, no doubt. She is safe from her very plainness, though confident, of course, that she could resist temptation and be a saint under all circumstances;" and he dismissed her from his mind with a sort of inward groan and protest against the necessity of making himself agreeable to her during his visit.
He did not think it worth while to disguise his face as he made these brief critical observations, and quick-witted Annie gathered something of the drift of his thoughts, as she stole a few glances at him from behind the coffee-urn. It piqued her pride a little, and she was disappointed in him, for she had hoped for a pleasant addition to their society for a time. But she was so supremely indifferent to him, and had so much to fill her thoughts and days, that his slight promise to prove an agreeable visitor caused but momentary annoyance. Yet the glimmer of a smile flitted across her face as she thought: "He may find himself slightly mistaken in me, after all. His face seems to say, 'No doubt she is a good young woman, and well enough for this slow country place, but she has no beauty, no style.' I think I can manage to disturb the even current of his vanity, if his visit is long enough, and he shall learn at least that I shall not gape admiringly at his artificial metropolitan airs."
Her manner toward Gregory remained full of kindness and grace, but she made no effort to secure his attention and engage him in conversation, as he had feared she would do. She acted as if she were accustomed to see such persons as himself at her father's breakfast-table every morning; and, though habitually wrapped up in his own personality, he soon became dimly conscious that her course toward him was not what he had expected.
Miss Eulie was all solicitude in view of his character of invalid; and the children looked at him with curious eyes and growing disapprobation. There was nothing in him to secure their instinctive friendship, and he made no effort to win their sympathies.
The morning meal began with a reverent looking to heaven for God's blessing on the gifts which were acknowledged as coming from Him; and even Gregory was compelled to admit that the brief rite did not appear like a careless signing of the cross, or a shrivelled form from which spirit and meaning had departed, but a sincere expression of loving trust and gratitude.
During the greater part of the meal, Mr. Walton dwelt on the circumstances that had led to his friendship with Gregory's father, but at last the conversation flagged a little, since the young man made so slight effort to maintain it.
Suddenly Mr. Walton turned to his daughter and said, "By the way, Annie, you have not told me where you found Mr. Gregory, for my impression is that you brought him down from the hills."
"I was about to say that I found him in a chestnut burr," replied Annie, with a twinkle in her eye. "At least I found a stranger by the cedar thicket, and he proved from a chestnut burr who he was, and his right to acquaintance, with a better logic than I supposed him capable of."
"Indeed?" asked Gregory, quickly, feeling the prick of her last words; "on what grounds were you led to estimate my logic so slightingly?"
"On merely general grounds; but you see I am open to all evidence in your favor. City life no doubt has great advantages, but it also has greater drawbacks."
"What are they?"
"I cannot think of them all now. Suffice it to say that if you had always lived in the city you could not have interpreted a chestnut burr so gracefully. Many there seem to forget Nature's lore."
"But may they not learn other things more valuable?"
Miss Walton shook her head, and said, with a laugh: "An ignorant exhorter once stated to his little schoolhouse audience that Paul was brought up at the foot of the hill Gamaliel. I almost wish he were right, for I should have had more confidence in the teachings of the hill than in those of the narrow-minded Jewish Rabbi."
"And yet you regard Paul as the very chief of the apostles."
"He became such after he was taught of Him who teaches through the hills and nature generally."
"My daughter is an enthusiast for nature," remarked Mr. Walton.
"If the people are the same as when I was here a boy, the hills have not taught the majority very much," said Gregory, with a French shrug.
"Many of them have a better wisdom than you think," answered Annie, quietly.
"In what does it consist?"
"Well, for one thing they know how to enjoy life and add to the enjoyment of others."
Gregory looked at her keenly for a moment, but saw nothing to lead him to think that she was speaking on other than general principles; but he said, a little moodily, as they rose from the table, "That certainly is a better wisdom than is usually attained in either city or country."
"It is not our custom to make company of our friends," said Mr. Walton, cordially. "We hope you will feel completely at home, and come and go as you like, and do just what you find agreeable. We dine at two, and have an early supper on account of the children. There are one or two fair saddle horses on the place, but if you do not feel strong enough to ride, Annie can drive you out, and I assure you she is at home in the management of a horse."
"Yes, indeed," echoed the little boy. "Aunt Annie can manage anything or anybody."
"That is a remarkable power," said Gregory, with an amused look and a side glance at the young girl. "How does she do it?"
"Oh, I don't know," replied the boy; "she makes them love her, and then they want to do as she says."
A momentary wrathful gleam shot from Annie's eyes at her indiscreet little champion, but with heightened color she joined in the laugh that followed.
Gregory had the ill grace to say with a sort of mocking gallantry, as he bowed himself out, "It must be delightful to be managed on such terms."
CHAPTER V
WAS IT AN ACCIDENT?
Putting on a light overcoat, for the morning air was sharp and bracing, Gregory soon found himself in the old square garden. Though its glory was decidedly on the wane, it was as yet unnipped by the frost It had a neatness and an order of its own that were quite unlike those where nature is in entire subordination to art. Indeed it looked very much as he remembered it in the past, and he welcomed its unchanged aspect. He strolled to many other remembered boyish haunts, and it seemed that the very lichens and mosses grew in the same places as of old, and that nature had stood still and awaited his return.
And yet every familiar object chided him for being so changed, and he began to find more of pain than pleasure as this contrast between what he had been and what he might have been was constantly forced upon him.
"Oh that I had never left this place!" he exclaimed, bitterly: "It would have been better to stay here and drudge as a day laborer. What has that career out in the world to which I looked forward so ardently amounted to? The present is disappointment and self-disgust, the future an indefinite region of fears and forebodings, and even the happy past is becoming a bitter mockery by reminding me of what can never be again."
Wearied and despondent, he moodily returned to the house and threw himself on a lounge in the parlor. A smouldering wood fire upon the hearth softened the air to summer temperature. The heat was grateful to his chilled, bloodless body, and gave him a luxurious sense of physical comfort, and he muttered: "I had about resolved to leave this place with its memories that are growing into torment, but I suppose it would be the same anywhere else. I am too weak and ill to face new scenes and discomfort. A little animal enjoyment and bodily respite from pain seem about all that is left to me of existence, and I think I can find these here better than elsewhere. If I am expected, however, to fall under the management of the daughter of the house on the terms blurted out by that fidgety nephew of hers, I will fly for my life. A plague on him! His restlessness makes me nervous! If I could endure a child at all, the blue-eyed little girl would make a pretty toy."
Sounds from the sitting-room behind the parlor now caught his attention, and listening he soon became aware that Miss Walton was teaching the children. "She has just the voice for a 'schoolmarm,'" he thought—"quick, clear-cut, and decided."
If he had not given way to unreasonable prejudice he might also have noted that there was nothing harsh or querulous in it.
"With her management and love of nature, she doubtless thinks herself the personification of goodness. I suppose I shall be well lectured before I get away. I had a foretaste of it this morning. 'Drawbacks of city life,' forsooth! She no doubt regards me as a result of these disadvantages. But if she should come to deem it her mission to convert or reform me, then will be lost my small remnant of peace and comfort."
But weakness and weariness soon inclined him to sleep. Miss Walton's voice sounded far away. Then it passed into his dream as that of Miss Bently chiding him affectedly for his wayward tendencies; again it was explaining that conscientious young lady's "sense of duty" in view of Mr. Grobb's offer, and even in his sleep his face darkened with pain and wrath.
Just then, school hours being over, Miss Walton came into the parlor. For a moment, as she stood by the fire, she did not notice its unconscious occupant. Then, seeing him, she was about to leave the room noiselessly, when the expression of his face arrested her steps.
If Annie Walton's eyes suggested the probability of "sudden gusts," they also at times announced a warm, kind heart, for as she looked at him now her face instantly softened to pity.
"Good he is not," she thought, "but he evidently suffers in his evil. Something is blighting his life, and what can blight a life save evil? Perhaps I had better change my proposed crusade against his vanity and cynicism to a kind, sisterly effort toward making him a better and therefore a happier man. It will soon come out in conversation that I have long been the same as engaged to another, and this will relieve me of absurd suspicions of designs upon him. If I could win a friendly confidence on his part, I'm sure I could tell him some wholesome truths, for even an enemy could scarcely look on that face without relenting."
There was nothing slow or cumbrous about Annie. These thoughts had flashed through her mind during the brief moment in which her eyes softened from surprise into sympathy as they caught the expression of Gregory's face. Then, fearing to disturb him, with silent tread she passed out to her wonted morning duties.
How seemingly accidental was that visit to the parlor! Its motive indefinite and forgotten. Apparently it was but a trivial episode of an uneventful day, involving no greater catastrophe than the momentary rousing of a sleeper who would doze again. But what day can we with certainty call uneventful? and what episode trivial? Those half-aimless, purposeless steps of Annie Walton into the quiet parlor might lead to results that would radically change the endless future of several lives.
In her womanly, pitying nature, had not God sent His angel? If a viewless "ministering spirit," as the sinful man's appointed guardian, was present, as many believe is the case with every one, how truly he must have welcomed this unselfish human companionship in his loving labor to save life; for only they who rescue from sin truly save life.
And yet the sleeper, even in his dreams, was evidently at war with himself, the world, and God. He was an example of the truth that good comes from without and not from within us. It is heaven stooping to men; heaven's messengers sent to us; truth quickened in our minds by heavenly influence, even as sunlight and rain awaken into beautiful life the seeds hidden in the soil; and, above all, impulses direct from God, that steal into our hearts as the south wind penetrates ice-bound gardens in spring.
But, alas! multitudes like Walter Gregory blind their eyes and steel their hearts against such influences. God and those allied to Him longed to bring the healing of faith and love to his wounded spirit. He scowled back his answer, and, as he then felt, would shrink with morbid sensitiveness and dislike from the kindest and most delicate presentation of the transforming truth. But the divine love is ever seeking to win our attention by messengers innumerable; now by the appalling storm, again by a summer sunset; now by an awful providence, again by a great joy; at times by stern prophets and teachers, but more often by the gentle human agencies of which Annie was the type, as with pitying face she bent over the worn and jaded man of the world and hoped and prayed that she might be able to act the part of a true sister toward him. Thorny and guarded was every avenue to his heart; and yet her feminine tact, combined with the softening and purifying influence of his old home, might gain her words acceptance, where the wisest and most eloquent would plead in vain.
After dinner he again hastened forth for a walk, his purpose being to avoid company, for he was so moody and morbid, so weak, nervous, and irritable, that the thought of meeting and decorously conversing with those whose lives and character were a continual reproach to him was intolerable. Then he had the impression that the "keen-eyed, plain-featured Miss Walton," as he characterized her in his mind, would surely commence discoursing on moral and religious subjects if he gave her a chance; and he feared that if she did, he would say or do something very rude, and confirm the bad impression that he was sure of having already made. If he could have strolled into his club, and among groups engaged with cards, papers, and city gossip, he would have felt quite at home. Ties formed at such a place are not very strong as a usual thing, and the manner of the world can isolate the members and their real life completely, even when the rooms are thronged. As Gregory grew worn and thin and his pallor increased, as he smoked and brooded more and more apart, his companions would shrug their shoulders significantly and whisper, "It looks as if Gregory would go under soon. Something's the matter with him."
At first good-natured men would say, "Come, Gregory, take a hand with us," but when he complied it was with such a listless manner that they were sorry they had asked him. At last, beyond mere passing courtesies, they had come to leave him very much alone; and in his unnatural and perverted state this was just what he most desired. His whole being had become a diseased, sensitive nerve, shrinking most from any effort toward his improvement, even as a finger pointed at a festering wound causes anticipatory agonies.
At the club he would be let alone, but these good people would "take an interest in him," and might even "talk religion," and probe with questions and surmises. If they did, he knew, from what he had already seen of them, that they would try to do it delicately and kindly, but he felt that the most considerate efforts would be like the surgical instruments of the dark ages. He needed good, decisive, heroic treatment. But who would have the courage and skill to give it? Who cared enough for him to take the trouble?
Not merely had Annie Walton looked with eyes of human pity upon his sin-marred visage that morning. The Divine personality, enthroned in the depths of her soul and permeating her life, looked commiseratingly forth also. Could demons glare from human eyes and God not smile from them?
As Annie thought much of him after her stolen glance in the morning, she longed to do that which he dreaded she would try to do—attempt his reformation. Not that she cared for him personally, or that she had grown sentimentally interested in his Byronic style of wretchedness. So far from it, her happy and healthful nature was repelled by his diseased and morbid one. She found him what girls call a "disagreeable man." But she yearned toward a sinning, suffering soul, found in any guise. It was not in her woman's heart to pass by on the other side.
CHAPTER VI
UNEXPECTED CHESTNUT BURRS
Gregory's afternoon walk was not very prolonged, for a shivering sense of discomfort soon drove him back to the house. Although the morning had been cool, the sun had shone bright and warm, but now the fore-shadowing of a storm was evident. A haze had spread over the sky, increasing in leaden hue toward the west. The chilly wind moaned fitfully through the trees, and the landscape darkened like a face shadowed by coming trouble.
Walter dreaded a storm, fearing it would shut him up with the family without escape; but at last the sun so enshrouded itself in gloom that he was compelled to return. He went to his room, for a book, hoping that when they saw him engaged they would leave him more to himself. But to his agreeable surprise he found a cheerful fire blazing on the hearth, and an ample supply of wood in a box near. The easy-chair was wheeled forward, and a plate of grapes and the latest magazine were placed invitingly on the table. Even his cynicism was not proof against this, delicate thoughtfulness, and he exclaimed, "Ah, this is better than I expected, and a hundred-fold better than I deserve. I make but poor return for their kindness. This cosey room seems to say, 'We won't force ourselves on you. You can be alone as much as you like,' for I suppose they must have noticed my disinclination for society. But they are wise after all, for I am cursed poor company for myself and worse than none at all for others."
Eating from time to time a purple grape, he so lost himself in the fresh thoughts of the magazine that the tea-bell rang ere he was aware.
"In the name of decency I must try to make myself agreeable for a little while this evening," he muttered, as he descended to the cheerful supper-room.
To their solicitude for his health and their regret that the approaching storm had driven him so early to the house, he replied, "I found in my room a better substitute for the sunlight I had lost; though as a votary of nature, Miss Walton, I suppose you will regard this assertion as rank heresy."
"Not at all, for your firelight is the result of sunlight." answered
Annie, smiling.
"How is that?"
"It required many summers to ripen the wood that blazed on your hearth. Indeed, good dry wood is but concentrated sunshine put by for cold, gloomy days and chilly nights."
"That is an odd fancy. I wish there were other ways of storing up sunshine for future use."
"There are," said Miss Walton, cheerfully; and she looked up as if she would like to say more, but he instantly changed the subject in his instinctive wish to avoid the faintest approach to moralizing. Still, conversation continued brisk till Mr. Walton asked suddenly, "By the way, Mr. Gregory, have you ever met Mr. Hunting of Wall Street?"
There was no immediate answer, and they all looked inquiringly at him. To their surprise his face was darkened by the heaviest frown. After a moment he said, with peculiar emphasis, "Yes; I know him well."
A chill seemed to fall on them after that; and he, glancing up, saw that Annie looked flushed and indignant, Miss Eulie pained, and Mr. Walton very grave. Even the little boy shot vindictive glances at him. He at once surmised that Hunting was related to the family, and was oppressed with the thought that he was fast losing the welcome given him on his father's account. But in a few moments Annie rallied and made unwonted efforts to banish the general embarrassment, and with partial success, for Gregory had tact and good conversational powers if he chose to exert them. When, soon after, they adjourned to the parlor, outward serenity reigned.
On either side of the ample hearth, on which blazed a hickory fire, a table was drawn up. An easy-chair stood invitingly by each, with a little carpet bench on which to rest the feet.
"Take one of these," said Mr. Walton, cordially, "and join me with a cigar. The ladies of my household are indulgent to my small vices."
"And I will send for your magazine," said Annie, "and then you can read and chat according to your mood. You gee that we do not intend to make a stranger of you."
"For which I am very glad. You treat me far better than I deserve."
Instead of some deprecatory remark, Annie gave him a quick, half-comical look which he did not fully understand.
"There is more in her than I at first imagined," he thought.
Seated with the magazine, Gregory found himself in the enjoyment of every element of comfort. That he might be under no constraint to talk, Annie commenced speaking to her father and Miss Eulie of some neighborhood affairs, of which he knew nothing. The children and a large greyhound were dividing the rug between them. The former were chatting in low tones and roasting the first chestnuts of the season on a broad shovel that was placed on the glowing coals. The dog was sleepily watching them lest in their quick movements his tail should come to grief.
Gregory had something of an artist's eye, and he could not help glancing up from his reading occasionally, and thinking what a pretty picture the roomy parlor made.
"Annie," said Mr. Walton, after a little while, "I can't get through this article with my old eyes. Won't you finish it for me? Shall we disturb you, Mr. Gregory?"
"Not at all."
Gregory soon forgot to read himself in listening to her. Not that he heard the subject-matter with any interest, but her sweet, natural tones and simplicity arrested and retained his attention. Even the statistics and the prose of political economy seemed to fall from her lips in musical cadence, and yet there was no apparent effort and not a thought of effect. Walter mused as he listened.
"I should like to hear some quiet, genial book read in that style, though it is evident that Miss Walton is no tragedy queen."
Having finished the reading, Annie started briskly up and said, "Come, little people, your chestnuts are roasted and eaten. It's bedtime. The turkeys and squirrels will be at the nut-trees long before you to-morrow unless you scamper off at once."
"O, Aunt Annie," chimed their voices, "you must sing us the chestnut song first; you promised to."
"With your permission, Mr. Gregory, I suppose I must make my promise good," said Annie.
"I join the children in asking for the song," he replied, glad to get them out of the way on such easy conditions, though he expected a nursery ditty or a juvenile hymn from some Sabbath-school collection, wherein healthy, growing boys are made to sing, "I want to be an angel." "Moreover," he added, "I have read that one must always keep one's word to a child."
"Which is a very important truth: do you not think so?"
"Since you are using the word 'truth' so prominently, Miss Walton, I must say that I have not thought much about it. But I certainly would have you keep your word on this occasion."
"Aunt Annie always keeps her word," said Johnny, rather bluntly. By some childish instinct he divined that Gregory did not appreciate Aunt Annie sufficiently, and this added to his prejudice.
"You have a stout little champion there," Gregory remarked.
"I cannot complain of his zeal," she answered significantly, at the same time giving the boy a caress. "Mr. Gregory, this is a rude country ballad, and we are going to sing it in our accustomed way, even though it shock your city ears. Johnny and Susie, you can join in the chorus;" and she sang the following simple October glee:
Katydid, your throat is sore,
You can chirp this fall no more;
Robin red-breast, summer's past,
Did you think 'twould always last?
Fly away to sunny climes,
Lands of oranges and limes;
With the squirrels we shall stay
And put our store of nuts away.
O the spiny chestnut burrs! O the prickly chestnut burrs!
Harsh without, but lined with down,
And full of chestnuts, plump and brown.
Sorry are we for the flowers;
We shall miss our summer bowers;
Still we welcome frosty Jack,
Stealing now from Greenland back.
And the burrs will welcome him;
When he knocks, they'll let him in.
They don't know what Jack's about;
Soon he'll turn the chestnuts out.
O the spiny, etc.—
Turkey gobbler, with your train,
You shall scratch the leaves in vain;
Squirrel, with your whisking tail,
Your sharp eyes shall not avail;
In the crisp and early dawn,
Scampering across the lawn.
We will beat you to the trees,
Come you then whene'er you please.
O the spiny, etc.—
Gregory's expression as she played a simple prelude was one of endurance, but when she began to sing the changes of his face were rapid. First he turned toward her with a look of interest, then of surprise. Miss Eulie could not help watching him, for, though she was well on in life, just such a character had never risen above her horizon. Too gentle to censure, she felt that she had much cause for regret.
At first she was pleased to see that he found the ditty far more to his taste than he had expected. But the rapid alternation from pleased surprise and enjoyment to something like a scowl of despair and almost hate she could not understand. Following his eyes she saw them resting on the boy, who was now eagerly joining in the chorus of the last verse. She was not sufficiently skilled to know that to Gregory's diseased moral nature things most simple and wholesome in themselves were most repugnant. She could not understand that the tripping little song, with its wild-wood life and movement—that the boy singing with the delight of a pure, fresh heart—told him, beyond the power of labored language, how hackneyed and blase he had become, how far and hopelessly he had drifted from the same true childhood.
And Miss Walton, turning suddenly toward him, saw the same dark expression, full of suffering and impotent revolt at his destiny, as he regarded it, and she too was puzzled.
"You do not like our foolish little song," she said.
"I envy that boy, Miss Walton," was his reply.
Then she began to understand him, and said, gently, "You have no occasion to."
"I wish you, or any one, could find the logic to prove that."
"The proof is not in logic but in nature, that is ever young. They who draw their life from nature do not fall into the only age we need dread."
"Do you not expect to grow old?"
She shook her head half humorously and said, "But these children will before I get them to bed."
He ostensibly resumed his magazine, but did not turn any leaves.
His first mental query was, "Have I rightly gauged Miss Walton? I half believe she understands me better than I do her. I estimated her as a goodish, fairly educated country girl, of the church-going sort, one that would be dreadfully shocked at finding me out, and deem it at once her mission to pluck me as a brand from the burning. I know all about the goodness of such girls. They are ignorant of the world; they have never been tempted, and they have a brood of little feminine weaknesses that of course are not paraded in public.
"And no doubt all this is true of Miss Walton, and yet, for some reason, she interests me a little this evening. She is refined, but nowhere in the world will you meet drearier monotony and barrenness than among refined people. Having no real originality, their little oddities are polished away. In Miss Walton I'm beginning to catch glimpses of vistas unexplored, though perhaps I am a fool for thinking so.
"What a peculiar voice she has! She would make a poor figure, no doubt, in an opera; and yet she might render a simple aria very well. But for songs of nature and ballads I have never heard so sympathetic a voice. It suggests a power of making music a sweet home language instead of a difficult, high art, attainable by few. Really Miss Walton is worth investigation, for no one with such a voice can be utterly commonplace. Strange as it is, I cannot ignore her. Though she makes no effort to attract my attention, I am ever conscious of her presence."
CHAPTER VII
A CONSPIRACY
When Miss Walton returned to the parlor her father said, "Annie, I am going to trespass on your patience again."
She answered with a little piquant gesture, and was soon reading in natural, easy tones, without much stumbling, what must have been Greek to her.
Gregory watched her with increasing interest, and another question than the one of finance involved in the article was rising in his mind.
"Is this real? Is this seeming goodness a fact?" It was the very essence of his perverted nature to doubt it. Now that his eyes were opened, and he closely observed Miss Walton, he saw that his prejudices against her were groundless. Although not a stylish, pretty woman, she was evidently far removed from the goodish, commonplace character that he could regard as part of the furniture of the house, useful in its place, but of no more interest than a needful piece of cabinet work. Nor did she assert herself as do those aggressive, lecturing females who deem it their mission to set everybody right within their sphere.
And yet she did assert herself; but he was compelled to admit that it was like the summer breeze or the perfume of a rose. He had resolved that very day to avoid and ignore her as far as possible, and yet, before the first evening in her presence was half over, he had left a magazine story unfinished; he was watching her, thinking and surmising about her, and listening, as she read, to what he did not care a straw about. Although she had not made the slightest effort, some influence from her had stolen upon him like a cool breeze on a sultry day, and wooed him as gently as the perfume of a flower that is sweet to all. He said to himself, "She is not pretty," and yet found pleasure in watching her red lips drop figures and financial terms as musically as a little rill murmurs over a mossy rock.
From behind his magazine he studied the group at the opposite table, but it was with the pain which a despairing swimmer, swept seaward by a resistless current, might feel in seeing the safe and happy on the shore.
Gray Mr. Walton leaned back in his chair, the embodiment of peace and placid content.
The subject to which he was listening and kindred topics had so far receded that his interest was that of a calm, philosophic observer, and Gregory thought, with a glimmer of a smile, "He is not dabbling in stocks or he could not maintain that quiet mien."
His habits of thought as a business man merely made it a pleasure to keep up with the times. In fact he was in that serene border-land between the two worlds where the questions of earth are growing vague and distant and those of the "better country" more real and engrossing, for Gregory observed, later in the evening, that he took the family Bible with more zest than he had bestowed on the motive power of the world. It was evident where his most valued treasures were stored. With a bitter sigh, Gregory thought, "I would take his gray hairs if I could have his peace and faith."
Miss Eulie, to whom he gave a passing glance, seemed even less earthly in her nature. Indeed, it appeared as if she had never more than half belonged to the material creation. Slight, ethereal, with untroubled blue eyes, and little puff curls too light to show their change to gray, she struck Gregory unpleasantly, as if she were a connecting link between gross humanity and spiritual existence, and his eyes reverted to Miss Walton, and dwelt with increasing interest on her. There at least were youth, health, and something else—what was it in the girl that had so strongly and suddenly gained his attention? At any rate there was nothing about her uncanny and spirit-like.
He did not understand her. Was it possible that a young girl, not much beyond twenty, was happy in the care of orphan children, in the quiet humdrum duties of housekeeping, and in reading stupid articles through the long, quiet evenings, with few excitements beyond church-going, rural tea-drinkings, and country walks and rides? With a grim smile he thought how soon the belles he had admired would expire under such a regimen. Could this be good acting because a guest was present? If so it was perfect, for it seemed, her daily life.
"I will watch her," he thought. "I will solve this little feminine enigma. It will divert my mind, and I've nothing else to do."
"My daughter spoils me, you see, Mr. Gregory," said Mr. Walton, starting up as Annie finished a theory that would make every one rich by the printing-press process,
"Don't plume yourself, papa," replied Annie, archly; "I shall make you do something for me to pay for all this."
With a humorous look he replied, "No matter, I have the best of the bargain, for I should have to do the 'something' anyway. But what do you think of this theory, sir?" And he explained, not knowing that Walter had been listening.
The gentlemen were soon deep in the mysteries of currency and finance, topics on which both could talk well. Annie listened with polite attention for a short time—indeed Gregory was exerting himself more for her sake than for Mr. Walton's—and she was satisfied from her father's face that his guest was interesting him; but as the subject was mainly unintelligible to her she soon turned with real zest to Miss Eulie's fancy-work, and there was an earnest whispered discussion in regard to the right number of stitches. Walter noted this and sneeringly thought, with a masculine phase of justice often seen, "That's like a woman. She drops one of the deepest and most important subjects of the day" (and he might have added, "As explained by me")—"and gives her whole soul to a bit of thread lace;" and he soon let Mr. Walton have the discussion all his own way.
In furtherance of his purpose to draw Annie out he said, rather banteringly, "Miss Walton, I am astonished that so good a man as your father should have as an ardent friend the profane and disreputable character that I found living in the cottage opposite on the day of my arrival."
"Profane, I admit he is," she replied, "but not disreputable. Indeed, as the world goes, I think old Daddy Tuggar, as he is called in this vicinity, is a good man."
"O, Annie!" said Miss Eulie. "How can you think so? You have broader charity than I. He is breaking his poor wife's heart."
"Indeed?" said Annie, dryly; "I was not aware of it."
"I too am astonished," said Walter, in mock solemnity. "How is it that a refined and orthodox young lady, a pillar of the church, too, I gather, can regard with other than unmixed disapprobation a man who breaks the third commandment and all the rules of Lindley Murray at every breath?"
"I imagine the latter offence is the more heinous sin in your eyes, Mr.
Gregory," she said, scanning his face with a quick look.
"Oh, you become aggressive. I was under the impression that I was making the attack and that you were on the defensive. But I can readily explain the opinion which you, perhaps not unjustly, impute to me. You and I judge this venerable sinner from different standpoints."
"You explain your judgment, but do not justify it," replied Annie, quietly.
"Annie, I don't see on what grounds you call Daddy Tuggar a good man," said Miss Eulie, emphatically.
"Please understand me, aunty," said Annie, earnestly. "I did not say he was a Christian man, but merely a good man as the world goes; and I know I shall shock you when I say that I have more faith in him than in his praying and Scripture-quoting wife. There, I knew I should," she added, as she saw Miss Eulie's look of pained surprise.
Mr. Walton was listening with an amused smile. He evidently understood his quaint old friend and shared Annie's opinion of him.
Gregory was growing decidedly interested, and said, "Really, Miss Walton, I must side with your aunt in this matter. I shall overwhelm you with an awful word. I think you are latitudinarian in your tendencies."
"Which Daddy Tuggar would call a new-fangled way of swearing at me," retorted Annie, with her frank laugh that was so genuinely mirthful that even Aunt Eulie joined in it.
"I half think," continued Annie, "that the churchmen in the ages of controversy did a good deal of worse swearing than our old neighbor is guilty of when they hurled at each other with such bitter zest the epithets Antinomian, Socinian, Pelagian, Calvinistic, etc."
"Those terms have an awful sound. They smite my ear with all the power that vagueness imparts, and surely must have caused stout hearts to tremble in their day," he remarked.
"We are no longer on the ground of currency and finance," said Annie, archly, "and I shall leave you to imagine that I know all about the ideas represented by the polysyllabic terms of churchmen's warfare."
He looked at her a moment in comic dismay. Really this country girl was growing too much for him in his game of banter.
"Miss Walton, I shall not dispute or question your knowledge of the
Socin—cin—(you know the rest) heresy—"
"Alas!" put in Annie, quietly, "I do know all about the 'sin heresy.' I can say that honestly."
"I am somewhat inclined to doubt that," he said, quickly; then added, in sudden and mock severity, "Miss Walton, if I were a judge upon the bench I should charge that you were evading the question and befogging the case. The point at issue is, How can you regard Daddy Tuggar as a good man? As evidence against him I can affirm that I do not remember to have had such a good square cursing in my life, and I have received several."
This last expression caused Miss Eulie to open her eyes at him.
"Not for your sake, sir," said Annie, with a keen yet humorous glance at him, "who as judge on the bench have in your pocket a written verdict, I fear, but for Aunt Eulie's I will give the reasons for my estimate. I regard her in the light of an honest jury. In the first place the term you used, 'square,' applies to him. I do not think he could be tempted to do a dishonest thing; and that, as the world goes, is certainly a good point."
"And as the church goes, too," he added, cynically.
"He is a good neighbor, and considerate of the rights of others. He can feel, and is not afraid to show a sincere indignation when seeing a wrong done to another."
"I can vouch for that. I shall steal no more of your apples, Mr.
Walton."
"There is not a particle of hypocrisy about him. I wish I could think the same of his wife. For some reason she always gives me the impression of insincerity. If I were as good as you are, aunty, perhaps I should not be so suspicious. One thing more, and my eulogy of Daddy—the only one he will ever receive, I fear—is over. He is capable of sincere friendship, and that is more than you can say of a great many."
"It is indeed," said Gregory, with bitter emphasis. "I should be willing to take my chances with Daddy Tuggar in this or any other world."
"You had better not," she answered, now thoroughly in earnest.
"Why so?"
"I should think memories of this place would make my meaning clear," she replied, gently.
Gregory's face darkened, and he admitted to himself that most unexpectedly she had sent an arrow home, and yet he could take no exception.
His indifference toward her had vanished now. So far from regarding her as a dull, good, country girl with a narrow horizon of little feminine and commonplace interests, he began to doubt whether he should be able to cope with her in the tilt of thought. He saw that she was quick, original, and did her own thinking, that in repartee she hit back unexpectedly, in flashes, as the lightning strikes from the clouds. He could not keep pace with her quick intuition.
Moreover, in her delicate reference to his parents' faith she had suggested an argument for Christianity that he had never been able to answer. For a little time she had caused him to forget his wretched self, but her last remark had thrown him back on his old doubts, fears, and memories. As we have said, his cynical, despondent expression returned, and he silently lowered at the fire.
Annie had too much tact to add a word. "He must be hurt—well probed indeed—before he can be well," she thought.
Country bedtime had now come, and Mr. Walton said, "Mr. Gregory, I trust you will not find our custom of family prayers distasteful."
"The absence of such a custom would seem strange to me in this place," he replied, but he did not say whether it would be agreeable or distasteful.
Annie went to the piano as if it were a habit, and after a moment chose the tender hymn—
"Come, ye disconsolate."
At first, in his morbid sensitiveness, he was inclined to resent this selection as aimed at him, but soon he was under the spell of the music and the sentiment, which he thought had never before been so exquisitely blended.
Miss Walton was not very finished or artistic in anything. She would not be regarded as a scholar, even among the girls of her own age and station, and her knowledge of classical music was limited. But she was gifted in a peculiar degree with tact, a quick perception, and the power of interpreting the language of nature and of the heart. She read and estimated character rapidly. Almost intuitively she saw people's needs and weaknesses, but so far was she from making them the ground of satire and contempt that they awakened her pity and desire to help. In other words, she was one of those Christians who in some degree catch the very essence of Christ's character, who lived and died to save. She did not think of condemning the guilty and disconsolate man that brooded at her fireside, but she did long to help him.
"I may never be able to say such words to him directly," she thought, "but I can sing them, and if he leaves our home to-morrow he shall hear the truth once more."
And she did sing with tenderness and feeling. In rendering something that required simplicity, nature, and pathos, no prima donna could surpass her, for while her voice was not powerful, and had no unusual compass, it was as sweet as that of a thrush in May.
Only deaf ears and a stony heart could have remained insensible, and Gregory was touched. A reviving breath from Paradise seemed to blow upon him and gently urge, "Arise, struggle, make one more effort, and you may yet cross the burning sands of the desert. It is not a mirage that is mocking you now."
As the last words trembled from the singer's lips he shaded his eyes with the hand on which his head was leaning, but Miss Eulie saw a tear fall with momentary glitter, and she exulted over it as his good angel might have done.
If penitent tears could be crystallized they would be the only gems of earth that angels would covet, and perhaps God's co-workers here will find those that they caused to flow on earth, set as gems in their "crown of glory that fadeth not away."
Mr. Walton, in reverential tones, read the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, which, with greater beauty and tenderness, carried forward the thought of the hymn; and then he knelt and offered a prayer that was so simple and child-like, so free from form and cant, and so direct from the heart, that Gregory was deeply moved. The associations of his early home were now most vividly revealed and crowned by the sacred hour of family worship, the memory of which, like a reproachful face, had followed him in all his evil life.
When he arose from his knees he again shaded his face with his hand to hide his wet eyes and twitching muscles. After a few moments he bade the family an abrupt goodnight, and retired to his room.
At first they merely exchanged significant glances. Then Miss Eulie told of the tear as if it were a bit of dust from a mine that might enrich them all. For a while Annie sat thoughtfully gazing into the fire, but at last she said, "It must be plain to us that Mr. Gregory has wandered further from his old home in spirit than he has in body; but it seems equally evident that he is not happy and content. He seems suffering and out of health in soul and body. Perhaps God has sent him to us and to his childhood's home for healing. Let us, therefore, be very careful, very tender and considerate. He is naturally proud and sensitive, and is morbidly so now."
"I think he is near the Kingdom," said Miss Eulie, with a little sigh of satisfaction.
"Perhaps all are nearer than we think," said Annie, in a musing tone. "God is not far from any one of us. But it is the curse of sin to blind. He has, no doubt, been long in reaching his present unhappy condition, and he may be long in escaping from it."
"Well, the Lord reigns," said Mr. Walton, sententiously, as if that settled the question.
"Dear old father!" said Annie, smiling fondly at him, "that's your favorite saying. You have a comfortable habit of putting all perplexing questions into the Lord's hand and borrowing no further trouble. Perhaps that is the wisest way after all, only one is a long time learning it."
"I've been a long time learning it, my child," said her father. "Let us agree to carry his case often to the throne of mercy, and in His good time and way our prayers will be answered."
Thus in quaint old scriptural style they conspired for the life of their unconscious guest. This was in truth a "holy alliance." How many dark conspiracies there have been, resulting in blood, wrong, and outrage, that some unworthy brow might wear for a little time a petty, perishing crown of earth! Oh, that there were more conspiracies like that in Mr. Walton's parlor for the purpose of rendering the unworthy fit to wear the crown immortal!
CHAPTER VIII
WITCHCRAFT
Miss Eulie was doomed to disappointment, for Gregory came down late to breakfast the following morning with not a trace of his softened feelings. Indeed, because of pride, or for some reason, he chose to seem the very reverse of all she had hoped. The winter of his unbelief could not pass away so easily.
Even in January there are days of sudden relenting, when the frost's icy grasp upon nature seems to relax. Days that rightfully belong to spring drop down upon us with birds that have come before their time. But such days may end in a northeast snowstorm and the birds perish.
The simile appeared true of Gregory. As far as he took part in the table-talk he was a cold, finished man of the world, and the gloom of the early morning rested on his face. But Annie noticed that he made an indifferent breakfast and did not appear well.
After he had retired to his room to write some letters, as he said, she remarked to her father when alone with him:
"I suppose you remember Mr. Gregory's manner when you spoke of Mr. Hunting. They evidently are acquainted and not on good terms. What could have occurred between them?"
"Some quarrel resulting from business, perhaps," said Mr. Walton, musingly.
"I believe Charles has been trying to restrain Mr. Gregory in some of his fast ways," Annie continued, emphatically, "and they have had hot words. Men have so little discretion in their zeal."
"Business men are not apt to interfere with each other's foibles unless they threaten their pockets," her father replied. "It is more probable that Gregory has borrowed money of Hunting, and been compelled to pay it against his will; and yet I have no right to surmise anything of the kind."
"But Mr. Hunting is not a mere business man, father. He is bent on doing good wherever he can find opportunity. I incline to my solution. But it is clear that we must be silent in regard to him while Mr. Gregory is with us, for I never saw such bitter enmity expressed in any face. It is well that Charles is to be absent for some time, and that we have no prospect of a visit from him while our guest is here. Oh, dear! I wish Charles could come and make us a visit instead of this moody, wayward stranger."
"I can echo that wish heartily, Annie, for in the son I find little of my old friend, his father. But remember what you said last night. It may be that he was sent to us in order that we should help him become what his father was."
"I will do my best; but I do not look forward to his society with much pleasure. Still, if there should be any such result as we hope for, I should feel repaid a thousand-fold."
Gregory finished his letters and then paced restlessly up and down his room.
"That this country girl should have so moved me!" he muttered. "What does it mean? What is there about her that takes hold of my attention and awakens my interest? I wish to go downstairs now, and talk to her, and have her read to me, and am provoked with myself that I do. Yesterday at this time I wished to avoid her.
"Why should I wish to avoid her? If she amuses me, diverts my mind, beguiles my pain, or more dreary apathy, why not let her exert her power to the utmost and make herself useful? Yes, but she will try to do more than amuse. Well, suppose she does; one can coolly foil such efforts. Not so sure of that. If I were dealing with a man I could, but one must be worse than a clod to hear her sing and not feel. I suppose I made a weak fool of myself before them all last night, and they thought I was on the eve of conversion. I half wish I were, or on the eve of anything else. Any change from my present state would seem a relief. But a man cannot go into these things like an impulsive girl, even if he believes in them, which is more than I do. I seem to have fallen into a state of moral and physical imbecility, in which I can only doubt, suffer, and chafe.
"I won't avoid her. I will study and analyze her character. I doubt whether she is as good, fresh, and original as she seems. Such girls exist only in moral stories, and I've met but few even there. I will solve her mystery. Probably it is not a very deep one, and after a day or two she will become an old story and life resume its normal monotony;" and he at once descended the stairs to carry out his purpose.
The children were just coming from the sitting-room where they had their school, exclaiming, "Oh, aunty, what shall we do this awful rainy day?"
"Wait till I have given some directions to Zibbie, and I will read you a fairy story, and then you can go up into the garret until dinner-time."
"May I listen to the fairy story also?" asked Walter.
Miss Walton looked up with a smile and said, "You must be half-desperate from your imprisonment to accept of such solace. But if you can wait till I have kept my word to the children I will read something more to your taste."
"I think I should like to hear how a fairy story sounds once again after all these years."
"As Shakespeare may sound to us some time in the future," she replied, smiling.
"I can't believe we shall ever outgrow Shakespeare," he said.
"I can believe it, but cannot understand how it is possible. As yet I am only growing up to Shakespeare."
"You seem very ready to believe what you cannot understand."
"And that is woman's way, I suppose you would like to add," she answered, smiling over her shoulder, as she turned to the kitchen department. "You men have a general faith that there will be dinner at two o'clock, though you understand very little how it comes to pass, and if you are disappointed the best of your sex have not fortitude enough to wait patiently, so I must delay no longer to propitiate the kitchen divinity."
"There!" he said, "I have but crossed her steps in the hall, and she has stirred me and set my nerves tingling like an October breeze. She is a witch."
After a few minutes Miss Walton entered. Each of the children called for a story, and both clamored for their favorites.
"Johnny," said Miss Walton, "it is manly to yield to the least and weakest, especially if she be a little woman."
The boy thought a moment, and then with an amusing assumption of dignity said, "You may read Susie's story first, aunty."
"Susie, promise Johnny that his story shall be read first next time;" which Susie promptly did with a touch of the womanly grace which accompanies favors bestowed after the feminine will has triumphed.
"Now, little miniature man and woman, listen!" and their round eyes were ready for the world of wonders.
And this child of nature was at the same time showing Gregory a world as new and strange—a world that he had caught glimpses of when a boy, but since had lost hopelessly. She carried the children away into fairy-land. She suggested to him a life in which simplicity, truth, and genuine goodness might bring peace and hope to the heart.
"Well, what do you think of the fairy story?" she asked after she had finished and the children had drawn sighs of intense relief at the happy denouement, in which the ugly ogre was slain and the prince and princess were married:
"I did not hear it," he said.
"That's complimentary. But you appeared listening very closely."
"You have heard of people reading a different meaning between the lines, and I suppose one can listen to a different meaning."
"And what could you find between the lines of this fairy tale?" she asked with interest.
"It would be difficult for me to explain—something too vague and indefinite for words, I fear. But if you will read me something else I will listen to the text itself."
"Come, children, scamper off to the garret," said Annie, "and remember you are nearer heaven up there, and so must be very kind and gentle to each other."
"You will fill those youngsters' heads with beautiful superstitions."
"Superstition and faith are not so very far apart, though so unlike."
"Yes, it is hard to tell where one leaves off and the other begins."
"Is it?"
"Isn't it?"
"I don't like to contradict you, sir."
"You have contradicted me, and I suppose it is manly to yield to a lady.'"
"Not in matters of principle and honest conviction."
"Alas! if one has not very much of either!"
"It is a very great misfortune, and, I suppose I ought to add, fault."
"I have no doubt it is a misfortune, Miss Walton, but you are not reading."
"Well, make your choice."
"I leave it entirely to you."
"You don't look very well to-day. I will select something light and cheerful from Dickens."
"Excuse me, please. I am in no mood for his deliberate purpose to make one laugh."
"Then here is Irving. His style flows like a meadowbrook."
"No, he is too sentimental."
"Walter Scott, then, will form a happy medium."
"No, he wearies one with explanations and history."
"Some of Tennyson's dainty idylls will suit your fastidious taste."
"I couldn't abide his affected, stilted language to-day."
"Shakespeare, then; you regard him as perfect."
"No, he makes me think, and I do not wish to."
"Well, here are newspapers, the latest magazine, and some new novels."
"Modern rubbish—a mushroom growth. They will soon kindle kitchen fires instead of thought."
"Then I must make an expedition to the library. What shall I bring? There is Mosheim's 'Ecclesiastical Ancient History'; that has a solid, venerable sound. Or, if you prefer poetry, I will get Gray's 'Elegy.' That cannot be a literary mushroom, for he was twenty years writing it. But perhaps it is Tupper you would like. That would suit your mood exactly, Tupper's 'Proverbial Philosophy.'"
"You are growing satirical, Miss Walton. Why don't you assert plainly that I am as full of whims as a—"
"Woman, would you like to say?"
"Present company excepted. The fact is, I am two-thirds ill to-day, and the most faultless style and theme in our language would weary me. I am possessed by the evil spirits of ennui, unrest, and disgust at myself and all the world, present company always excepted. Do you know of any spell that can exorcise these demons?"
"Yes, a very simple one. Will you put yourself absolutely in my power and obey?"
"I am your slave."
Miss Walton left the room and soon returned with a large afghan. "You must take a horizontal position in order that my spell may work."
"Pshaw! you are prescribing an ordinary nap."
"I am glad to say the best things in this world are ordinary. But permit me to suggest that in view of your pledged word you have nothing to do in this matter but to obey."
"Very well;" and he threw himself on the sofa.
"The day is chilly, sir, and I must throw this afghan over you;" and she did so with a little touch of delicacy which is so grateful when one is indisposed.
Her manner both soothed and pleased him.
He was more lonely than he realized, for it had been years since he had experienced woman's gentle care and ministry; and Annie Walton had a power possessed by few to put jangling nerves at rest. Suddenly he said, "I wish I had a sister like you."
"My creed, you know," she replied, "makes all mankind kindred."
"Nonsense!" said Gregory, irritably; "deliver me from your church sisters."
"Take care!" she answered, with a warning nod, "I'm a church sister; so don't drive me away, for I am going to sing you to sleep."
"I'm half inclined to join your church that I may call you sister."
"You would be disciplined and excommunicated within a month. But hush; you must not talk."
"How would you treat me after I had been anathematized?"
"If you were as ill as you are to-day I would make you sleep. Hush; not another word. I am going to sing."
A luxurious sense of comfort stole over him, and he composed himself to listen and criticise, little imagining, though, that he would fall asleep. He saw through the window a lowering sky with leaden clouds driven wildly across it. The wind moaned and soughed around the angles of the house, and the rain beat against the glass. All without seemed emblematic of himself. But now he had a brief but blessed sense of shelter from both the storm and himself. The fire blazed cheerily on the hearth. The afghan seemed to envelop him like a genial atmosphere. Had Miss Walton bewitched it by her touch? And now she has found something to suit her, or rather him, and is singing.
"What an unusual voice she has!" he thought "Truly the spirit of David's harp, that could banish the demon from Saul, dwells in it. I wonder if she is as good and real as she seems, or whether, under the stress of temptation or the poison of flattery, she would not show herself a true daughter of Eve? I must find out, for it is about the only remaining question that interests me. If she is like the rest of us—if she is a female Hunting—then good-by to all hope. I shall not live to find anybody or anything to trust. If she is what she seems, it's barely possible that she might help me out of this horrible 'slough of despond,' if she would take the trouble. I wish that she were my sister, or that my sister had lived and had been just like her."
CHAPTER IX
MISS WALTON RECOMMENDS A HOBBY
To Gregory's surprise he waked and then admitted to himself that, contrary to his expectation and purpose, he had been asleep. His last remembered consciousness was that of sweet, low music; and how long ago was that? He looked at his watch; it was nearly two, and he must have slept several hours. He glanced around and saw that he was alone, but the fire still blazed on the hearth, and the afghan infolded him with its genial warmth as before, and it seemed that although by himself he was still cared for.
"She is a witch," he muttered. "Her spells are no jokes. But I will investigate her case like an old-time Salem inquisitor. With more than Yankee curiosity, which was at the bottom of their superstitious questionings, I will pry into her power. But she will find that she has a wary sceptic to convince. I have seen too many saints and sinners to be again deceived by fair seeming."
A broad ray of sunlight shot across the room. "By my soul! it's clearing off. Is this her work also? Has she swept away the clouds with her broomstick? And there goes the dinner-bell, too;" and he went to his room two steps at a time, as he had done when a boy.
Annie coming out of the sitting-room at that moment, smiled and said:
"He must be better."
At the table she asked, "How do you find yourself now?"
"Much given to appetite." Then, turning to Mr. Walton, he said, abruptly, "Do you believe in witchcraft?"
"Well, no, sir," said Mr. Walton, a little taken aback.
"I do!" continued he, emphatically.
"When and where have you had experience of the black art?"
"This morning, and in your house, sir."
"You seem none the worse for it," said his host, smiling.
"Indeed, I have not felt so well in months. Your larder will suffer if
I am practiced upon any more."
"Well, of all modern and prosaic results of witchery this exceeds," said Annie, laughing, "since only a good appetite comes of it."
"It yet remains to be seen whether this is the only result," replied Gregory. "What possessed the old Puritans to persecute the Salem witches is a mystery to me, if their experience was anything like mine."
"You must remember that the question of what was agreeable or otherwise scarcely entered into a Puritan's motives."
"I am not so sure of that," he answered, quickly. "It has ever seemed to me that the good people of other days went into persecution with a zeal that abstract right can hardly account for. People will have their excitements, and a good rousing persecution used to stir things like the burning of Chicago or a Presidential election in our day."
"Granting," said Annie, "the bigotry and cruelty of the persecutor—and these must be mainly charged to the age—still you must admit that among them were earnest men who did from good motives what appears very wrong to us. What seemed to them evil and destructive principles were embodied in men and women, and they meant to destroy the evil through the suffering and death of these poor creatures."
"And then consider the simplicity and ease of the persecutor's method," continued Gregory, mockingly. "A man's head has become full of supposed doctrinal errors. To refute and banish these would require much study and argument on the part of the opponent. It was so much easier to take an obstinate heretic's head off than to argue with him! I think it was the simplicity of the persecutor's method that kept it in favor so long."
"But it never convinced any one," said Annie, "and the man killed merely goes into another world of the same opinion still."
"And there probably learns, poor fellow, that both were wrong, and that he had better have been content with good dinners and a quiet life, and let theology alone."
"The world would move but slowly, if all men were content with 'good dinners and a quiet life,'" said Annie, satirically. "But you have not answered my question. Could not good, earnest men have been very cruel, believing that everything depended on their uprooting some evil of their day?"
"To tell the truth, Miss Walton," he replied, a little nettled, "I have no sympathy with that style of men. To me they are very repulsive and ridiculous. They remind me of the breathless, perspiring politicians of our time, who button-hole you and assert that the world will come to an end unless John Smith is elected. To me, the desperate earnestness of people who imagine it their mission to set the world right is excessively tiresome. For one man or a thousand to proclaim that they speak for God and embody truth, and that the race should listen and obey, is the absurdity of arrogance."
"If we were to agree with you, should we not have to say that the prophets should have kept their visions to themselves, and that Luther should have remained in his cell, and Columbus have coasted alongshore and not insisted on what was to all the world an absurdity?"
"Come, Miss Walton," said Gregory, with a vexed laugh as they rose from the table, "you are a witch. I am willing to argue with flesh and blood, but I would rather hear you sing. Still, since you have swept away these clouds so I can have my ramble, I will forgive you for unhorsing me in our recent tilt."
"If you would mount some good honest hobby and ride it hard, I doubt whether any one could unhorse you," she replied in a low tone, as she accompanied him to the parlor.
"Men with hobbies are my detestation, Miss Walton."
"Nevertheless, they are the true knights-errant of our age. Of course it depends upon what kind of hobbies they ride, or whether they can manage their steeds."
"Miss Walton, your figure suggests a half-idiot, with a narrow forehead and one idea, banging back and forth on a wooden horse, but making no progress—in other words, a fussy, bustling man who can do and talk but one thing."
"Your understanding of the popular phrase is narrow and literal, and while it may have such a meaning, it can also have a very different one. Suppose that, instead of looking with languid eyes alike upon all things, a man finds some question of vital import, or a pursuit that promises good to himself and to others and that enlists his interest. He comes at last to give it his best energies and thought. The whole current of his life is setting in that direction. Of course he must ever be under the restraints of good sense and refinement. A man's life without a hobby is a weak and wavering line of battle indefinitely long. One's life with a hobby is a concentrated charge."
There was in Miss Walton's face and manner, as she uttered these words, that which caused him to regard her with involuntary admiration. Suddenly he asked, "Have you a hobby?"
Her manner changed instantly, and with an arch look she said, "If you detest a man with a hobby, what a monster a woman with one would be in your eyes!"
"I have admitted that you are a witch."
"Oh, I am a monster already, and so have no character to lose. But where is your penetration? If a man with a hobby is idiotic, narrow-browed, fussy and bustling, excessively obtrusive with his one idea, a woman must be like him with all these things exaggerated. Has it not occurred to you that I have a hobby of the most wooden and clumsy order?"
"But that was my idea of a hobby. You have spiritualized my wooden block into a Pegasus—the symbol of inspiration. Have you such a hobby?"
"I have."
"What is it?"
She went out of the room, saying smilingly over her shoulder, "You must find that out for yourself."
CHAPTER X
A PLOT AGAINST MISS WALTON
Gregory was soon off for his ramble. The storm had cleared away, leaving the air so warm and genial as to suggest spring rather than fall; but he was quite oblivious of the outer world, and familiar scenes had not the power to awaken either pleasant or painful associations. He was trying to account for the influence that Annie Walton had suddenly gained over him, but it was beyond his philosophy. This provoked him. His cool, worldly nature doubted everything and especially everybody. He believed in the inherent weakness of humanity, and that if people were exceptionally good it was because they had been exceptionally fortunate in escaping temptation. He also had a cynical pleasure in seeing such people tripping and stumbling, so that he might say in self-excusing, "We are all alike."
And yet he was compelled to admit that if Annie's goodness was seeming it was higher art than he had known before. There was also an unconscious assertion of superiority in her manner that he did not like. True, things had turned out far better than he had expected. There was no cant about her. She did not lecture him or "talk religion" in what he regarded as the stereotyped way, and he was sure she would not, even if they became better acquainted. But there is that in genuine goodness and nobility of character that always humiliates the bad and makes them feel their degradation. A real pity and sympathy for him tinged her manner, but these qualities are not agreeable to pride. And it must be admitted that she had a little self-righteous satisfaction that she was so much better than this sadly robbed and wounded man suddenly appearing at the wayside of her life. In human strength there is generally a trace of arrogance. Only divine strength and purity can say with perfect love and full allowance for all weakness and adverse influences, "Neither do I condemn thee; go, and sin no more."
Gregory had now reached a rustic bridge across a little stream that, swollen from the recent rain, came gurgling and clamoring down from the hills. Leaning upon the rail he seemed to watch the foaming water glide under his feet; but the outward vision made no impression on his mind.
At last in the consciousness of solitude he said: "She told me I must find her out. I will. I will know whether she is as free from human frailty as she seems. I have little doubt that before many days I can cause her to show all the inherent weaknesses of her sex; and I should think New York and Paris had taught me what they are. She has never been tempted. She has never been subjected to the delicate flattery of an accomplished man of the world. I am no gross libertine. I could not be in this place. I could not so wrong hospitality and the household of my father's friend. But I should like to prove to that girl her delusion, and show her that she is a weak woman like the rest; that she is a pretty painted ship that has never been in a storm, and therefore need not sail so confidently. We all start on the voyage of life as little skiffs and pleasure boats might cross the ocean. If any get safely over, it is because they were lucky enough not to meet dangerous currents or rough weather. I should like her better with her piquant ways if she were more like myself. Saints and Madonnas are well enough in pictures, but such as I would find them very uncomfortable society."
With sudden power the thought flashed upon him, "Why not let her make you as she is?" Where did the thought come from? Tell me not that the Divine Father forgets His children. He is speaking to them continually, only they will not hear. There was a brief passionate wish on the part of this bad man that she might be what she seemed and that he could become like her. As the turbulent, muddy Jordan divided that God's people might pass through, so this thought from heaven found passage through his heart, and then the current of sinful impulse and habit flowed on as before. With the stupidity of evil he was breaking the clew that God had dropped into his hand even when desperately weary of his lost state. He is wrecked and helpless on the wide ocean; a ship is coming to his rescue; and his first effort is that this vessel also may be wrecked or greatly injured in the attempt.
There is no insanity like that of a perverted heart. The adversary of souls has so many human victims doing his work that he can fold his hands in idleness. And yet according to the world's practice, and we might almost say its code, Gregory purposed nothing that would be severely condemned—nothing more than an ordinary flirtation, as common in society as idleness, love of excitement, and that power over others which ministers to vanity. He had no wish to be able to say anything worse of her than that under temptation she would be as vain and heartless a coquette as many others that he knew in what is regarded as good society. He would have cut off his right hand, as he then felt, rather than have sought to lead her into gross sin.
And yet what did Gregory purpose in regard to Annie but to take the heavenly bloom and beauty from her character? As if they can be lovely to either God or man of whom it can be said only, They commit no overt crime. What is the form of a rose without its beauty and fragrance? They who tempt to evil are the real iconoclasts. They destroy God's image.
But the supreme question of the selfish heart is, "What do I want now?"
Gregory wished to satisfy himself and Miss Walton that she had no grounds for claiming any special superiority over him, and he turned on his heel and went back to the house to carry out his purpose. Nature, purified and beautiful by reason of its recent baptism from heaven, had no attractions for him. Gems of moisture sparkled unseen. He was planning and scheming to turn her head with vanity, make her quiet life of ministry to others odious, and draw her into a fashionable flirtation.
Annie did not appear until the supper-bell summoned her, and then said, "Mr. Gregory, I hope you will not think it rude if father and I leave you to your books and Aunt Eulie's care this evening. It is our church prayer-meeting night, and father never likes to be absent."
"I shall miss you beyond measure. The evening will seem an age."
Something in his tone caused her to give him a quick glance, but she only said, with a smile, "You are very polite to say so, but I imagine the last magazine will be a good substitute."
"I doubt whether there is a substitute for you, Miss Walton. I am coming to believe that your absence would make that vacuum which nature so dreads. You shall see how good I will be this evening, and you shall read me everything you please, even to that 'Ancient Ecclesiastical History.' If you will only stay I will be your slave; and you shall rule me with a rod of iron or draw me with the silken cords of kindness, according to your mood."
"It is not well to have too many moods, Mr. Gregory," said Annie, quietly. "In reply to all your alluring reasons for staying at home I have only to say that I have promised father to go with him; besides, I think it is my duty to go."
"'Duty' is a harsh, troublesome word to be always quoting. It is a kind of strait-jacket which we poor moral lunatics are compelled to wear."
"'Duty' seems to me a good solid road on which one may travel safely. One never knows where the side paths lead: into the brambles or a morass like enough."
"Indeed, Miss Walton, such austerity is not becoming to your youth and beauty."
"What am I to think of your sincerity when you speak of my beauty, Mr.
Gregory?"
"Beauty is a question of taste," answered Gregory, gallantly. "It is settled by no rigid rules or principles, but by the eyes of the observer."
"Oh! I understand now. My beauty this evening is the result of your bad taste."
"Calling it 'bad' does not make it so. Well, since you will not remain at home with me, will you not let me go with you to the prayer-meeting? If I'm ever to join your church, it is time I entered on the initiating mysteries."
"I think a book will do you more good in your present mood."
"What a low estimate you make of the 'means of grace'! Why, certain of your own poets have said, 'And fools who came to scoff remained to pray.'"
"The quotation does not apply to you, Mr. Gregory. For, even if you can doubt the power and truth of Christianity, the memory of your childhood will prevent you from scoffing at it."
A sudden shadow came across his face, but after a moment he said, in his old tones:
"Will you not let me go to the prayer-meeting?"
"Father will be glad to have you go with us, if you think it prudent to venture out in the night air."
"Prudence to the dogs! What is the use of living if we cannot do as we please? But will you be glad to have me go?"
"That depends upon your motives."
"If I should confess you wouldn't let me go," he replied with a bow. "But I will try to be as good as possible, just to reward your kindness."
The rest of the family now joined them in the supper-room, and during the meal Walter exerted himself to show how entertaining he could be if he chose. Anecdotes, incidents of travel, graphic sketches of society, and sallies of wit, made an hour pass before any one was aware.
Even the children listened with wondering eyes, and Mr. Walton and Miss Eulie were delighted with the vivacity of their guest. Annie apparently had no reason to complain of him, for his whole manner toward her during the hour was that of delicately sustained compliment. When she spoke he listened with deference, and her words usually had point and meaning. He also gave to her remarks the best interpretation of which they were capable, and by skilfully drawing her out made her surpass even herself, so that Miss Eulie said, "Why, Annie, there surely is some witchcraft about. You and Mr. Gregory are as brilliant as fireworks."
"It's all Miss Walton's work, I assure you," said Gregory. "As Pat declared, 'I'm not meself any more,' and shall surprise you, sir, by asking if I may go to the prayer-meeting. Miss Walton says I can if I will behave myself. The last time I went to the old place I made faces at the girls. I suppose that would be wrong."
"That is the sin of our age—making faces," said Annie. "Many have two, and some can make for themselves even more."
"Now that was a barbed arrow," said Gregory, looking at her keenly.
"Did you let it fly at a venture?"
"Bless me!" said Mr. Walton, rising hastily, "we should have been on the road a quarter of an hour ago. You mustn't be so entertaining another prayer-meeting night, Mr. Gregory. Of course we shall be glad to have you accompany us if you feel well enough. I give you both but five minutes before joining me at the wagon."
Walter again mounted the stairs with something of his old buoyancy, and
Annie followed, looking curiously after him.
It was not in human nature to be indifferent to that most skilful flattery which can be addressed to woman—the recognition of her cleverness, and the enhancing of it by adroit and suggestive questions—and yet all his manner was tinged by a certain insincere gallantry, rather than by a manly, honest respect. She vaguely felt this, though she could not distinctly point it out. He puzzled her. What did he mean, and at what was he aiming?
CHAPTER XI
A DRINKING-SONG AT A PRAYER-MEETING
Having failed in his attempt to induce Annie to remain at home, Gregory resolved that the prayer-meeting should not be one of quiet devotion. Mr. Walton made him, as an invalid, take the back seat with Annie, while he sat with the driver, and Gregory, after a faint show of resistance, gladly complied.
"It's chilly. Won't you give me half of your shawl?" he said to her.
"You may have it all," she replied, about to take it off.
"No, I'll freeze first. Do the brethren and sisters sit together?"
"No," she answered, laughing, "we have got in the queer way of dividing the room between us, and the few men who attend sit on one side and we on the other."
"Oh, it's almost a female prayer-meeting then. Do the sisters pray?"
"Mr. Gregory, you are not a stranger here that you need pretend to such ignorance. I think the meeting is conducted very much as when you were a boy."
"With this most interesting difference, that you will be there and will sing, I hope. Miss Walton, where did you learn to sing?"
"Mainly at home."
"I should think so. Your voice is as unlike that of a public singer as you are unlike the singer herself."
"It must seem very tame to you."
"It seems very different. We have an artificial-flower department in our store. There is no lack of color and form there, I assure you, but after all I would prefer your rose garden in June."
"But you would probably prefer your artificial-flower department the rest of the year," said Annie, laughing.
"Why so?"
"Our roses are annuals and are only prosaic briers after their bloom."
"Imagine them hybrid perpetuals and monthlies and you have my meaning. But your resemblance to a rose extends even to its thorns. Your words are a little sharp sometimes."
"In the thorns the resemblance begins and ends, Mr. Gregory. I assure you I am a veritable Scotch brier. But here we are at our destination. I wonder if you will see many old, remembered faces."
"I shall be content in seeing yours," he replied in a low tone, pressing her hand as he assisted her to alight.
If he could have seen the expression of her face in the darkness it would have satisfied him that she did not receive that style of compliment like many of the belles of his acquaintance, who would take the small change of flattery with the smiling complacency of a public door-keeper.
They were late. The good old pastor was absent, and one of the brethren was reading a chapter in the Bible. Gregory took a seat where he could see Annie plainly, and she sat with her side face toward him.
He watched her keenly, in order to see if she showed any consciousness of his presence. The only evidence in his favor was a slight flush and a firmness about the lips, as if her will was asserting itself. But soon her face had the peaceful and serious expression becoming the place and hour, and he saw that she had no thoughts for him whatever. He was determined to distract her attention, and by restlessness, by looking fixedly at her, sought her eye, but only secured the notice of some young girls who thought him "badly smitten with Miss Walton."
The long chapter having been read, a hymn was given out. The gentleman who usually led the music was also absent, and there was an ominous pause, in which the good brother's eye wandered appealingly around the room and at last rested hopefully on Annie. She did not fail him, but, with heightened color and voice that trembled slightly at first, "started the tune." It was a sweet, familiar air, and she soon had the support of other voices. One after another they joined her in widely varying degrees of melody, even as the example of a noble life will gradually secure a number of more or less successful imitators.
Gregory had seen the appeal to her with an amused, half-comical look, but her sincere and ready performance of the duty that had unexpectedly revealed itself rapidly changed the expression of his face to one of respect and admiration. Distinct, and yet blending with the others, her voice seemed both to key up and hide the little roughnesses and discords of some who perhaps had more melody in their hearts than in their tones.
Again a divine impulse, like a flower-laden breeze sweeping into a dark and grated vault at Greenwood, stirred Gregory's evil nature.
"Let her teach you the harmony of noble, unselfish living. Follow her in thought, feeling, and action, as those stammering, untuned tongues do in melody, and the blight of evil will pass from your life. Seek not to muddy and poison this clear little rill that is watering a bit of God's world. Grant that her goodness is not real, established, and thoroughly tested—that it is only a pretty surface picture. Seek not to blur that picture."
But the evil heart is like Sodom. Good angel-thoughts may come to it, but they are treated with violence and driven out. His habit of cynical doubt soon returned, and his purpose to show Miss Walton that she was a weak, vain woman after all became stronger than ever.
It seemed to have come to this, that his salvation depended on, not what Miss Walton could say or do directly in his behalf, but upon her maintenance of a character that even a sceptical world must acknowledge as inspired by heaven, and this, too, against a tempter of unusual skill and tact. She might sing with resistless pathos, and argue and plead with Paul's logic and eloquence. His nature might be stirred for a moment as a stagnant pool is agitated by the winds of heaven, and, like the pool, he would soon settle back into his old apathy. But if she could be made to show weakness, to stumble and fall, it would confirm him in his belief that goodness, if it really existed, was accidental; that those whose lives were apparently free from stain deserved no credit, because untempted; and that those who fell should be pitied rather than blamed, since they were unfortunate rather than guilty. Anything that would quiet and satisfy his conscience in its stern arraignment of his evil life would be welcome. The more he saw of Miss Walton the more he felt that she would be a fair subject upon whom to test his favorite theory. Therefore, by the time one of the brethren present had finished his homely exhortation he was wholly bent upon carrying out his plan.
But Miss Walton sat near, as innocently oblivious of this plot against her as Eve of the serpent's guile before the tempter and temptation came into fatal conjunction.
What thoughts for and against each other may dwell utterly hidden and unknown in the hearts of those so near that their hands may touch! Conspiracies to compass the death that is remediless may lurk just behind eyes that smile upon us. Of course Gregory desired no such fatal result to follow his little experiment. Few who for their own pleasure, profit, or caprice tempt others wish the evil to work on to the bitter end. They merely want a sufficient letting down of principle and virtue for the accomplishment of their purpose, and then would prefer that the downward tendency should cease or be reversed. The merchant who requires dishonorable practices of his clerk wishes him to stop at a point which, in the world's estimation, is safe. And those who, like Gregory, would take the bloom from woman's purity and holiness in thought and action, that they may enjoy a questionable flirtation, would be horrified to see that woman drop into the foul gulf of vice. With the blind egotism of selfishness, they wish merely to gratify their present inclinations, ignoring the consequences. They are like children who think it would be sport to see a little cataract falling over a Holland dike. Therefore, when the tide is in they open a small channel, but are soon aghast to find that the deep sea is overwhelming the land.
Gregory, as is usual with his kind, thought only of his own desires. When he had accomplished these Miss Walton must take care of herself. When from seeming a sweet, pure woman she had, by a little temptation, proved to be capable of becoming a vain flirt, he would go back to business and dismiss her from his thoughts with the grim chuckle, "She is like the rest of us."
And thus Annie was destined to meet her mother Eve's experience; and with the energy and promptness of evil Gregory was keenly on the alert for anything to further his purpose.
It would seem that the satanic ally in such schemes does not permit opportunity to be wanting long. The leader of the meeting again selected a hymn, but of a peculiar metre. He read only two lines, and then looked expectantly toward Annie, who could not at the moment think of a tune that would answer; and while with knit brows she was bending over her book, to her unbounded surprise she heard the hymn started by a clear, mellow tenor voice. Looking up she saw Gregory singing as gravely as a deacon. She was sufficiently a musician to know that the air did not belong to sacred music, though she had never heard it before.
In his watchfulness he had noted her hesitation, and glancing at the metre saw instantly that the measure of a drinking-song he knew well would fit the words. This fell out better than he had hoped, and with the thought, "I will jostle her out of her dignity now," he began singing without any embarrassment, though every eye was upon him. He had been out in the world long enough for that.
As Annie turned with a shocked and half-frightened expression toward him his eyes met hers with a sudden gleam of drollery which was irresistible, and he had the satisfaction of seeing her drop her head to conceal a smile. But he noticed, a moment later, that her face became grave with disapprobation.
Having sung a stanza he looked around with an injured air, as if reproaching the others for not joining in with him.
"The tune is not exactly familiar to us," said the good man leading the meeting, "but if the brother will continue singing we will soon catch the air; or perhaps the brother or some one else (with a glance at Annie) will start one better known."
Gregory deliberately turned over the leaves, and to the tune of Old
Hundred started a hymn commencing:
"Unveil thy bosom, faithful tomb,
Take this new treasure to thy trust,
And give these sacred relics room
To slumber in the silent dust."
Annie had a keen sense of the ludicrous, and the transition from what he had been singing to the funereal and most inappropriate words was almost too much for her. To her impotent anger and self-disgust she felt a hysterical desire to laugh, and only controlled herself by keeping her head down and her lips firmly pressed together during the remainder of the brief service.
Even others who did not know Gregory could not prevent a broad smile at the incongruous hymn he had chosen, but they unitedly wailed it through, for he persisted in singing it all in the most dirge-like manner. They gave him credit for doing the best he could, and supposed his unhappy choice resulted from haste and embarrassment. In the spontaneity of social meetings people become accustomed to much that is not harmonious.
Mr. Walton was puzzled. His guest was certainly appearing in an unexpected role, and he feared that all was not right.
After the meeting the brethren gathered round Gregory and thanked him for his assistance, and he shook hands with them and the elderly ladies present with the manner of one who might have been a "pillar in the temple." Many of them remembered his father and mother and supposed their mantle had fallen on him.
An ancient "mother in Israel" thanked him that he had "started a tune that they all could sing, instead of the new-fangled ones the young people are always getting up nowadays. But," said she, "I wish you could learn us that pretty one you first sang, for it took my fancy amazingly. I think I must have heard it before somewhere."
Gregory gave Annie another of his suggestive glances, that sent her out hastily into the darkness, and a moment later he joined her at the carriage steps.
CHAPTER XII
FOILED IN ONE DIRECTION
Gregory lifted Miss Walton very tenderly into the carriage and took his place by her side, while her father was detained by some little matter of business.
"I am not an invalid," said Annie, rather curtly.
"Indeed you are not, Miss Walton; from your super-abundance you are even giving life to me."
"I thought from your manner you feared I was about to faint," she answered, dryly.
Mr. Walton joined them and they started homeward.
"Come, Miss Annie," said Gregory (addressing her thus for the first time); "why so distant? Was I not called a brother in the meeting? If I am a brother you are a sister. I told you I would secure this relationship."
She did not answer him.
"I think it was too bad," he continued, "that you did not second my efforts better. You would not help me sing either of the tunes I started."
"Mr. Gregory," said Annie, emphatically, "I will never go to a prayer-meeting with you again."
"What a rash resolve! But I confess that I preferred to have you stay at home with me."
"You have spoiled the whole evening for me."
"And you spoiled mine. So we are quits," he replied, laughingly.
"No, we are not. How can you turn sacred things into a jest?"
"I was possessed to see a smile light up the awful gravity of your face, and I feel amply repaid in that I succeeded. It was a delicious bit of sunshine on a cloudy day."
"And I am provoked at myself beyond measure, that I could have laughed like a silly child."
"But did you not like the first tune I sang? 'Old Hundred' was selected in deference to the wishes of the meeting."
"No, I did not like it. It was not suitable to the place and words. Though I never heard it before, its somewhat slow movement did not prevent it from smacking of something very foreign to a prayer-meeting."
"A most happy and inspired expression. Many a time I have smacked my lips when it was being sung over the best of wine."
"Was it a drinking-song, then?" she asked, quickly.
"What will you do with me if I say it was?"
"Mr. Gregory, I would not have thought this even of you."
"Even of me! That is complimentary. I now learn what a low estimate you have of me. But see how unjust you are. The musical commissaries of the church militant are ever saying, 'It's a pity the devil should have all the good music,' and so half the Sunday-school tunes, and many sung in churches, have had a lower origin than my drinking-song. I assure you that the words are as fine as the air. Why have I not as good a right to steal a tune from the devil as the rest of them?"
"It's the motive that makes all the difference," said Annie. "But I fear that in this case the devil suffered no loss."
"I'm sure my motive was not bad. I only wished to see a bonny smile light up your face."
Before she could reply the carriage stopped at Mr. Walton's door, and with Mr. Gregory she passed into the cosey parlor. Her father did not immediately join them.
As Gregory looked at her while she took off her wraps, he thought, "By
Jove! she's handsome if she is not pretty."
In fact Annie's face at that time would have attracted attention anywhere. The crisp air had given her a fine color. Her eyes glowed with suppressed excitement and anger, while the firm lines about the mouth indicated that when she spoke it would be decidedly. In spite of herself the audacity, cleverness, and wickedness of this stranger had affected her greatly. As he threw off his moodiness, as he revealed himself by word and action, she saw that he was no ordinary character, but a thorough man of the world, and with some strange caprices. The suspicion crossed her mind that he might be not only in peril himself but also a source of danger. She had determined during the ride home that even though he meant no slur upon sacred things he should carry his mocking spirit no more into them. Therefore, after a moment's thought, she turned toward him with a manner of mingled frankness and dignity, and said, "Mr. Gregory, I regret what has occurred this evening. I have a painful sense of the ludicrous, and you have taken unfair advantage of it. I am usually better and happier for going to our simple little meeting, but now I can think of the whole hour only with pain. I think I am as mirth-loving as the majority of my age, and perhaps more so. I say truly that my heart is very light and happy. But, Mr. Gregory, we look at certain things very differently from you. While I would not for a moment have you think that religion brings into my life gloom and restraint—quite the reverse—still it gives me great pain when anything connected with my faith is made a matter of jest. These things are sacred to us, and I know my father would feel deeply grieved if he understood you this evening. Do you not see? It appears to us differently from what it does to you and perhaps to the world at large. These things are to us what your mother's memory is to you. I would sooner cut off my right hand than trifle with that."
Gregory had been able to maintain his quizzical look of mischief till she named his mother; then his face changed instantly. A flush of shame crossed it, and after a moment, with an expression something like true manhood, he stepped forward and took Annie's hand, saying, "Miss Walton, I sincerely ask your pardon. I did not know—I could not believe that you felt as you do. I will give you no further reason to complain of me on this ground. I hope you will forgive me."
She at once relented, and said:
"'Who by repentance is not satisfied
Is not of heaven nor earth.'
There is an apt quotation from your favorite Shakespeare."
"You seem a delightful mixture of both, Miss Walton."
"If you were a better judge, sir, you would know that the earthly ingredient is too great. But that is in your favor, for I am sufficiently human to make allowance for human folly."
"I shall tax your charity to the utmost."
As Gregory sat in his arm-chair recalling the events of the day before retiring, he thought: "Well, my attempt has failed signally. While by her involuntary smile she showed that she was human, she has also managed this evening to prove that she is perfectly sincere in her religion, and to render it impossible for me to assail her in that direction again. As the old hymn goes, I must 'let her religious hours alone.' But how far her religion or superstition will control her action is another question. I have learned both at home and abroad that people can be very religious and very sincere in matters of faith and ceremony, and jealous of any hand stretched out to touch their sacred ark, but when through with the holy business they can live the life of very ordinary mortals. This may be true of Miss Walton. At any rate I have made a mistake in showing my hand somewhat at a prayer-meeting, for women are so tenacious on religious matters. Deference, personal attention, and compliments—these are the irresistible weapons. These inflate pride and vanity to such a degree that a miserable collapse is necessary. And yet I must be careful, for she is not like some belles I know, who have the swallow of a whale for flattery. She is too intelligent, too refined, to take compliments as large and glaring as a sunflower. Something in the way of a moss-rose bud will accomplish more. I will appear as if falling under her power; as if bewitched by her charms. Nothing pleases your plain girls more than to be thought beautiful. I shall have her head turned in a week. I am more bent than ever on teaching this little Puritan that she and I live upon the same level."
Saturday morning dawned clear and bracing, and the grass was white with hoar-frost. The children came in to breakfast with glowing cheeks and hair awry, crying excitedly in the same breath that they "had been to the chestnut trees and that Jack had opened the burrs all night."
In answer to their clamorous petitions a one-o'clock dinner was promised, and Aunt Annie was to accompany them on a nutting expedition with Jeff as pioneer to thresh and club the trees.
"Can I go too?" Gregory asked of the children.
"I suppose so," said Johnny, rather coldly; "if Aunt Annie is willing."
"You can go with me," said kind-hearted little Susie.
"Now I can go whether Aunt Annie is willing or not," said Gregory, with mock defiance at the boy.
He glanced at his aunt's face to gather how he should take this, but she settled the matter satisfactorily to him by saying, "You shall be my beau, and Mr. Gregory will be Susie's."
"Good, good!" exclaimed Susie. "I've got a beau already;" and she beamed upon Gregory in a way that made them all laugh.
"'Coming events cast their shadows before,' you perceive, Miss Walton," said he, meaningly.
"Sometimes the events themselves are but shadows," she replied, dryly.
"Now that is severe upon the beaux. How about the belles?" he asked, quickly.
"I have nothing to say against my own sex, sir."
"That is not fair. Of course I can say nothing adverse."
"If you should say what you think, I fear we should be little inclined to cry with Shylock, 'A Daniel come to judgment!'"
"You have a dreadful opinion of me, Miss Walton. I wish you would teach me how I can change it."
"You discovered so much in a chestnut burr the day you came I should not be surprised if you could find anything else there that you wish to know."
"I shall not look in burrs for chestnuts this afternoon, but for something else far more important."
Gregory spent the forenoon quietly in his own room reading, in order that he might have all the vigor possible for the ramble. And to Annie, as housekeeper, Saturday morning brought many duties.
By two o'clock the nutting expedition was organized, and with Jeff in advance, carrying a short ladder and a long limber pole, the party started for the hills. At first Johnny, oppressed with his dignity as Aunt Annie's "beau," stalked soberly at her side, and Susie also claimed Gregory according to agreement, and insisted on keeping hold of his hand.
He submitted with such grace as he could muster, for children were tiresome to him, and he wanted to talk to Miss Walton, without "little pitchers with large ears" around.
Annie smiled to herself at his half-concealed annoyance and his wooden gallantry to Susie, but she understood child life well enough to know that the present arrangement would not last very long. And she was right. They had hardly entered the shady lane leading to the trees before a chipmonk, with its shrill note of exclamation at unexpected company, started out from some leaves near and ran for its hole.
Away went Aunt Annie's beau after it, and Susie also, quite oblivious of her first possession in that line, joined in the pursuit. There was an excited consultation above the squirrel's retreat, and then Johnny took out his knife and cut a flexible rod with which to investigate the "robber's den."
Gregory at once joined Annie, saying, "Since the beau of your choice has deserted you, will you accept of another?"
"Yes, till he proves alike inconstant."
"I will see to that. A burr shall be my emblem."
"Or I do," she added, laughing.
"Now the future is beyond my power."
"Perhaps it is anyway. Johnny was bent upon being a true knight. You may see something that will be to you what the chipmonk was to him."
"And such is your opinion of man's constancy? Miss Walton, you are more of a cynic than I am."
"Indeed! Do women dwell in your fancy as fixed stars?"
"Fixed stars are all suns, are they not? I know of one with wonderful powers of attraction," said he, with a significant glance.
"Does she live in New York?" quietly asked Annie.
"You know well she does not. She is a votaress of nature, and, as I said, I shall search in every burr for the hidden clew to her favor."
"You had better look for chestnuts, sir."
"Chestnuts! Fit food for children and chipmonks. I am in quest of the only manna that ever fell from heaven. Have you read Longfellow's 'Golden Legend,' Miss Walton?"
"Yes," she replied, with a slight contraction of the brow as if the suggestion were not pleasing.
The children now came running toward them and wished to resume their old places. "No, sir," said Walter, decisively. "You deserted your lady's side and your place is filled; and Susie—
"'Thou fair, false one,'
—you renounced me for a chipmonk. My wounded heart has found solace in another."
Johnny received this charge against his gallantry with a red face and eyes that began to dilate with anger, while Susie looked at Gregory poutingly and said, "I don't like big beaux. I think chipmonks are ever so much nicer."
The laugh that followed broke the force of the storm that was brewing; and Annie, by saying, "See, children, Jeff is climbing the tree on top of the hill; I wonder who will get the first nuts," caused the wind to veer round from the threatening quarter, and away they scampered with grievances all forgotten.
"If grown-up children could only forget their troubles as easily!" sighed Gregory. "Miss Walton, you are gifted with admirable tact. Your witchery has cleared up another storm."
"They have not forgotten," said Annie, ignoring the compliment—"they have only been diverted from their trouble. Children can do by nature what we should from intelligent choice—turn away the mind from painful subjects to those that are pleasing. You don't catch me brooding over trouble when there are a thousand pleasant things to think of."
"That is easier said than done, Miss Walton. I read on your smooth brow that you have had few serious troubles, and, as you say, 'you have a thousand pleasant things to think of.' But with others it may be very different. Some troubles have a terrible magnetism that draws the mind back to them as if by a malign spell, and there are no 'pleasant things to think of.'"
"No 'pleasant things'? Why, Mr. Gregory! The universe is very wide."
"Present company excepted," replied he gallantly. "But what do I care for the universe? As you say, it is 'very wide'—a big, uncomfortable place, in which one is afraid of getting lost."
"I am not," said Annie, gently.
"How so?"
"It's all my Father's house. I am never for a moment lost sight of. Wherever I am, I am like a little child playing outside the door while its mother, unseen, is watching it from the window."
He looked at her keenly to see if she were perfectly sincere. Her face had the expression of a child, and the thought flashed across him, "If she is so watched and guarded, how vain are my attempts!"
But he only said with a shrug, "It would be a pity to dissipate your happy superstition, Miss Walton, but after what I have seen and experienced in the world it would seem more generally true that the mother forgot her charge, left the window, and the child was run over by the butcher's cart."
"Do you think it vain confidence," said Annie, earnestly, "when I say that you could not dissipate what you term my 'superstition,' any more than you could argue me out of my belief in my good old father's love?"
CHAPTER XIII
INTERPRETING CHESTNUT BURRS
The conversation had taken a turn that Gregory wished to avoid, so he said: "Miss Walton, you regard me as wretched authority on theology, and therefore my opinions will go for nothing. Suppose we join the children on the hill, for I am most anxious to commence the search for the clew to your favor. Give me your hand, that as your attendant I may at least appear to assist you in climbing, though I suppose you justly think you could help me more than I can you."
"And if I can, why should I not?" asked Annie, kindly.
"Indeed, Miss Walton, I would crawl up first. But thanks to your reviving influences, I am not so far gone as that."
"Then you would not permit a woman to reach out a helping hand to you?
Talk not against Turks and Arabs. How do Christian men regard us?"
"But you look upon me as a 'heathen.'"
"Beg your pardon, I do not."
"Miss Walton, give your honest opinion of me—just what you think."
"Will you do the same of me?"
"Oh, certainly!"
"No, do not answer in that tone. On your honor."
Gregory was now caught. If he agreed he must state his doubts of her real goodness; his low estimate of women in general which led to his purpose to tempt her. This would not only arm her against his efforts, but place him in a very unpleasant light. "I beat a retreat, Miss Walton. I am satisfied that your opinion would discourage me utterly."
"You need have no fears of that kind," she said; "although my opinion would not be flattering it would be most encouraging."
"No, Miss Walton, I am not to be caught. My every glance and word reveal my opinion of you, while yours of me amounts to what I used to hear years ago: 'You are a bad boy now, but may become a good one.' Come, give me your hand."
As she complied she gave him a quick, keen look. Her intuition told her of something hidden, and he puzzled her.
Her hand was ungloved, and he thought, "When have I clasped such a hand before? It could help a Hercules. At any rate he would like to hold it, for it is alive."
There is as much diversity of character in hands as in faces. Some are very white and shapely, and a diamond flashes prettily upon them, but having said this you have said all. Others suggest honest work and plenty of it, and for such the sensible will ever have a genuine respect. There are some hands that make you think of creatures whose blood is cold. A lady's hand in society often suggests feebleness, lack of vitality. It is a thing to touch decorously, and if feeling betray you into giving a hearty grasp and pressure, you find that you are only causing pain and reducing the member to a confused jumble of bones and sinews. There are hands that suggest fancy-work, light crochet needles, and neuralgia.
Annie's hand was not one that a sculptor would care to copy, though he would find no great fault with it; but a sculptor would certainly take pleasure in shaking hands with her—the pleasure that is the opposite of our shrinking from taking the hand of the dead. It was soft and delicate to the pressure, and yet firm. It reminded one of silk drawn over steel, and was all electric and throbbing with life. You felt that it could give you the true grasp of friendship—that it had power to do more than barely cling to something—that it could both help and sustain, yet its touch would be gentleness itself beside the couch of suffering.
When they had reached the brow of the hill he was much more exhausted than she, and sat down panting.
"Miss Walton," he asked, "do you not despise a feeble man?"
"What kind of feebleness do you mean?"
"The weakness that makes me sit pale and panting here, while you stand there glowing with life and vigor, a veritable Hebe."
"All your compliments cannot balance that imputation against me. Such weakness awakens my pity, sympathy, and wish to help."
"Ah! the emotions you would bestow on a beggar—very agreeable to a man. Well, what kind of feebleness do you despise?"
"I think I should despise a feeble, vacillating Hercules most of all—a burly, assuming sort of person, who could be made a tool of, and led to do what he knew to be mean and wrong."
"You must despise a great many people then."
"No, I do not. Honestly, Mr. Gregory, I have no right to despise any one. I was only giving the reverse of my ideal man. But I assure you I share too deeply in humanity's faults to be very critical."
"I am delighted to hear, Miss Walton, that you share in our fallen humanity, for I was beginning to doubt it, and you can well understand that I should be dreadfully uncomfortable in the presence of perfection."
"If you could escape all other sources of discomfort as surely as this one, you would be most happy," replied Annie, with heightened color. "I shall ever think you are satirical when you speak in such style."
"A truce, Miss Walton; only, in mercy to my poor mortality, be as human as you can. Though you seem to suspect me of a low estimate of your sex, I much prefer women to saints and Madonnas. I am going to look for the burr."
This was adroitness itself on the part of Gregory, for, of all things, sensible Annie, conscious of faults and many struggles, did not wish to give the impression that she thought herself approaching perfection. And yet he had managed to make her sensitive on that point, and given her a strong motive to relax strict rules of duty, and act "like other people," as he would say.
Jeff's limber pole was now doing effective service. With many a soft thud upon the sward and leaves the burrs rained around, while the detached chestnuts rattled down like hail. The children were careering about this little tempest of Jeff's manufacture in a state of wild glee, dodging the random burrs, and snatching what nuts they could in safety on the outskirts of the prickly shower. At last the tree was well thrashed, and bad the appearance of a school-boy bully who, after bristling with threats and boasts for a long time, suddenly meets his master and is left in a very meek and plucked condition.
But the moment Jeff's pole ceased its sturdy strokes there was a rush for the spoils, the children awakening the echoes with their exclamations of delight as they found the ground covered with what was more precious to them than gold. Even Gregory's sluggish pulses tingled and quickened at the well-remembered scene, and he felt a little of their excitement. For the moment he determined to be a boy again, and running into the charmed circle, picked away as fast as any of them till his physical weakness painfully reminded him that his old tireless activity had passed away, perhaps forever.
He leaned against the trunk of the tree and noted with something of an artist's eye the pretty picture. The valley beneath was beginning to glow with the richest October tints, in the midst of which was his old home, that to his affection seemed like a gem set in gold, ruby, and emerald. The stream appeared white and silvery as seen through openings of the bordering trees, and in the distance the purple haze and mountains blended together, leaving it uncertain where the granite began, as in Gregory's mind fact and fancy were confusedly mingling in regard to Miss Walton.
And he soon turned from even that loved and beautiful landscape to her as an object of piquant interest, and the pleasure of analyzing and testing her character, and—well, some hidden fascination of her own, caused a faint stir of excitement at his heart, even as the October air and exercise had just tinged his pale cheeks.
But Miss Walton reminded him of a young sugar maple that he had noticed, all aflame, from his window that morning, so rich and high was her color, as, still intent upon the thickly scattered nuts, she followed the old unspent childish impulse to gather now as she had done when of Susie's age. With a half-wondering smile Gregory watched her intent expression, so like that of the other children, and thought, "Well, she is the freshest and most unhackneyed girl I have ever met for one who knows so much. It seems true, as she said, that she draws her life from nature and will never grow old. Now she is a child with those children, looking and acting like them. A moment later she will be a self-possessed young lady, with a quick, trained intellect that I can scarcely cope with. And yet in each and every character she seems so real and vital that even I, in spite of myself, feel compelled to admit her truth. Her life is like a glad, musical mountain stream, while I am a stagnant pool that she passes and leaves behind. I wonder if it is possible for one life to be awakened and quickened by another. I wonder if her vital force would be strong enough to drag another on who had almost lost the power to follow. It is said that young fresh blood can be infused directly into the veins of the old and feeble. Can the same be true of moral forces, and a glad zest and interest in life be breathed into the jaded, cloyed, ennui-cursed spirit of one who regards existence with dull eye, sluggish pulse, and heart of lead? It seems to me that if any one could have such power it would be that girl there with her intense vitality and subtle connection with nature, which, as she says, is ever young and vigorous. And yet I propose to reveal her to herself as a weak, vain creature, whose fair seeming like a pasteboard castle falls before the breath of flattery. By Jove, I half hope I shan't succeed, and yet to satisfy myself I shall carry the test to the utmost limit."
In her absorbed search for nuts, Annie had approached the trunk of the tree, and was stooping almost at Gregory's feet without noticing him. Suddenly she turned up a burr whose appearance so interested her that she stood up to examine it, and then became conscious of his intent gaze.
"There you stand," she said, "cool and superior, criticising and laughing at me as a great overgrown child."
"If you had looked more closely you would have seen anything rather than cool criticism in my face. I wish you could tell me your secret, Miss Walton. What is your hidden connection with Nature, that her strong, beautiful life flows so freely into yours?"
"You would not believe me if I told you."
"Indeed, Miss Walton, I should be inclined to believe anything you told me, you seem so real. But, pardon me, you have in your hand the very burr I have been looking vainly for. Perhaps in it I may find the coveted clew to your favor. It may winningly suggest to you my meaning, while plain, bald words would only repel. If I could only interpret Nature as you breathe her spirit I might find that the autumn leaves were like illuminated pages, and every object—even such an insignificant one as this burr—an inspired illustration. When men come to read Nature's open book, publishers may despair. If I wished to tell you how I would dwell in your thoughts, what poet has written anything equal to this half-open burr? It portrays our past, it gives our present relations, and suggests the future; only, like all parables, it must not be pressed too far, and too much prominence must not be given to some mere detail. These prickly outward pointing spines represent the reserve and formality which keep comparative strangers apart. But now the burr is half-open, revealing its heart of silk and down. So if one could get past the barriers which you, alike with all, turn toward an indifferent or unfriendly world, a kindliness would be found that would surround a cherished friend as these silken sides envelop this sole and favored chestnut. Again, note that the burr is half-open, indicating, I hope, the progress we have made toward such friendship. I have no true friend in the wide world that I can trust, and I would like to believe that your regard, like this burr, is opening toward me. The final suggestion that I should draw may seem selfish, and yet is it not natural? This chestnut dwells alone in the very centre of the burr. We do not like to share a supreme friendship. There are some in whose esteem we would be first."
When Gregory finished he was half-frightened at his words, for in developing his fanciful parallel in the bold style of gallantry he had learned to employ toward the belles of the ball-room, and from a certain unaccountable fascination that Annie herself had for him, he had said more than he meant.
"Good heavens!" he thought, "if she should take this for a declaration and accept me on the spot, I should then be in the worst scrape of my sorry life."
Miss Walton's manner rather puzzled him. Her heightened color and quickened breathing were alarming, while the contraction of her brow and the firmness of her lips, together with an intent look on the chestnut in the centre of the burr, rather than a languishing look at him or at nothing, were more assuring. She perplexed him still more when, as her only response to all this sentiment, she asked, "Mr. Gregory, will you lend me your penknife?"
Without a word he handed it to her, and she at the same time took the burr from his hand, and daintily plucking out the chestnut tossed the burr rather contemptuously away. "Mr. Gregory, if I understand your rather far-fetched and forced interpretation of this little 'parable of nature,' you chose to represent yourself by this great lonely chestnut occupying the space where three might have grown. On observing this emblematic nut closely I detect something that may also have a place in your 'parable';" and she pushed aside the little quirl at the small end of the nut, which partially concealed a worm-hole, and cutting through the shell showed the destroyer in the very heart of the kernel.
There was nothing far-fetched in this suggestion of nature, and he saw—and he understood that Miss Walton saw—evil enthroned in the very depths of his soul. The revelation of the hateful truth was so sudden and sharp that his face darkened with involuntary pain and anger. It seemed to him that, by the simple act of showing him the worm-infested chestnut, she had rejected anything approaching even friendship, and had also given him a good but humiliating reason why. He lost his self-possession and forgot that he deserved a stinging rebuke for his insincerity. He would have turned away in coldness and resentment. His visit might have come to an abrupt termination, had not Annie, with that delicate, womanly tact which was one of her most marked characteristics, interrupted him as he was about to say something to the effect, "Miss Walton, since you are so much holier than I, it were better that I should contaminate the air you breathe no longer."
She looked into his clouded face with an open smile, and said, "Mr. Gregory, you have been unfortunate in the choice of a burr. Now let me choose for you;" and she began looking around for one suited to her taste and purpose.
This gave him time to recover himself and to realize the folly of quarrelling or showing any special feeling in the matter. After a moment he was only desirous of some pretext for laughing it off, but how to manage it he did not know, and was inwardly cursing himself as a blundering fool, and no match for this child of nature.
Annie soon came toward him, saying, "Perhaps this burr will suggest better meanings. You see it is wide open. That means perfect frankness. There are three chestnuts here instead of one. We must be willing to share the regard of others. One of these nuts has the central place. As we come to know people well, we usually find some one occupying the supreme place in their esteem, and though we may approach closely we should not wish to usurp what belongs to another. Under Jeff's vigorous blows the burr and its contents have had a tremendous downfall, but they have not parted company. True friends should stick together in adversity. What do you think of my interpretation?"
"I think you are a witch, beyond doubt, and if you had lived a few centuries ago, you would have been sent to heaven in a chariot of fire."
"Really, Mr. Gregory, you give me a hot answer, but it is with such a smiling face that I will take no exception. Let us slowly follow Jeff and the children along the brow of the hill to the next tree. The fact is I am a little tired."
What controversy could a man have with a pretty and wearied girl? Gregory felt like a boy who had received a deserved whipping and yet was compelled and somewhat inclined to act very amiably toward the donor. But he was fast coming to the conclusion that this unassuming country girl was a difficult subject on which to perform his experiment. He was learning to have a wholesome respect for her that was slightly tinged with fear, and doubts of success in his plot against her grew stronger every moment. And yet the element of persistence was large in his character, and he could not readily give over his purpose, though his cynical confidence had vanished. He now determined to observe her closely and discover if possible her weak points. He still held to the theory that flattery was the most available weapon, though he saw he could employ it no longer in the form of fulsome and outspoken compliment. The innate refinement and truthfulness of Annie's nature revolted at broad gallantry and adulation. He believed that he must reverse the tactics he usually employed in society, but not the principles. Therefore he resolved that his flattery should be delicate, subtle, manifested in manner rather than in words. He would seem submissive; he would humbly wear the air of a conquered one. He would delicately maintain the "I-am-at-your-mercy" attitude.
These thoughts flashed through his mind as they passed along the brow of the hill, which at every turn gave them a new and beautiful landscape. But vales in Eden would not have held his attention then. To his perplexity this new acquaintance had secured his undivided interest. He felt that he ought to be angry at her and yet was not. He felt that a man who had seen as much of the world as he should be able to play with this little country girl as with a child; but he was becoming convinced that, with all his art, he was no match for her artlessness.
In the interpretation of the burr of her own choice, Annie had suggested that the central and supreme place in her heart was already occupied, and his thoughts recurred frequently to that fact with uneasiness. The slightest trace of jealousy, even as the merest twinge of pain is often precursor of serious disease, indicated the power Miss Walton might gain over one who thought himself proof against all such influence. But he tried to satisfy himself by thinking, "It is her father who occupies the first place in her affections."
Then a moment later with a mental protest at his folly, "What do I care who has the first place? It's well I do not, for she would not permit such a reprobate as I, with evil in my heart like that cursed worm in the chestnut, to have any place worth naming—unless I can introduce a little canker of evil in her heart also. I wish I could. That would bring us nearer together and upon the same level." Annie saw the landscapes. She looked away from the man by her side and for a few moments forgot him. The scenes upon which she was gazing were associated with another, and she ardently wished that that other and more favored one could exchange places with Gregory. Her eyes grew dreamy and tender as she recalled words spoken in days gone by, when, her heart thrilling with a young girl's first dream of love, she had leaned upon Charles Hunting's arm, and listened to that sweetest music of earth, all the more enchanting when broken and incoherent; and Hunting, with all his coolness and precision in Wall Street, had been excessively nervous and unhappy in his phraseology upon one occasion, and tremblingly glad to get any terms from the girl who seemed a child beside him. Annie would not permit an engagement to take place. Hunting was a distant relative. She had always liked him very much, but was not sure she loved him. She was extremely reluctant to leave her father, and was not ready for a speedy marriage; so she frankly told him that he had no rival, nor was there a prospect of any, but she would not bind him, or permit herself to be bound at that time. If they were fated for each other the way would eventually be made perfectly clear.
He was quite content, especially as Mr. Walton gave his hearty approval to the match, and he regarded the understanding as a virtual engagement. He wanted Annie to wear the significant ring, saying that it should not be regarded as binding, but she declined to do so.
Nearly two years had passed, and, while she put him off, she satisfied him that he was steadily gaining the place that he wished to possess in her affections. He was gifted with much tact and did not press his suit, but quietly acted as if the matter were really settled, and it were only a question of time. Annie had also come to feel in the same way. She did not see a very great deal of him, though he wrote regularly, and his letters were admirable. He became her ideal man and dwelt in her imagination as a demi-god. To the practical mind of this American girl his successes in the vast and complicated transactions of business were as grand as the achievements of any hero. Her father had been a merchant, and she inherited a respect for the calling. Her father also often assured her that her lover bade fair to lead in commercial circles.
"Hunting has both nerve and prudence," he was wont to say; and to impetuous Annie these qualities, combined with Christian principles, formed her very ideal man.
Her lover took great pains not to undeceive her as to his character, and indeed, with the infatuation of his class, hoped that, when he had amassed the fortune that glittered ever just before him, he could assume, in some princely mansion, the princely, knightly soul with which she had endowed him.
So he did not press matters. Indeed in his rapid accumulation of money he scarcely wished any interruption, and Annie thought all the more of him that he was not dawdling around making love half the time. There was also less danger of disenchanting her by his presence, for woman's perception is quick.
But now she inwardly contrasted her strong, masterful knight, "sans peur et sans reproche," as she believed, with the enfeebled, shrunken man at her side. Gregory suffered dreadfully by the comparison. The worm-eaten chestnut seemed truly emblematic, and in spite of herself her face lighted up with exultation and joy that the man of her choice was a man, and not one upon whom she could not lean for even physical support.
Gregory caught her expression and said, quickly: "Your face is full of sudden gleams. Tell me what you are thinking about."
She blushed deeply in the consciousness of her thoughts, but after a moment said, "I do not believe in the confessional."
He looked at her keenly, saying, "I wish you did and that I were your father confessor."
She replied, laughing, "You are neither old nor good enough. If I were of that faith I should require one a great deal older and better than myself. But here we are at our second tree, which Jeff has just finished. I am going to be a child again and gather nuts as before. I hope you will follow suit, and not stand leaning against the tree laughing at me."
CHAPTER XIV
"A WELL-MEANIN' MAN"
The western horizon vied with the autumn foliage as at last they turned homeward. Their path led out upon the main road some distance above the house, and, laden with the spoils that would greatly diminish the squirrels' hoard for the coming winter, they sauntered along slowly, from a sense of both weariness and leisure.
They soon reached the cottage of the lame old man who had fired such a broadside of lurid words at Gregory, as he stood on the fence opposite. With a crutch under one arm and leaning on his gate, Daddy Tuggar seemed awaiting them, and secured their attention by the laconic salutation, "Evenin'!"
"Why, Daddy," exclaimed Annie, coming quickly toward him. "I am real glad to see you so spry and well. It seems to me that you are getting young again;" and she shook the old man's hand heartily.
"Now don't praise my old graveyard of a body, Miss Annie. My sperit is pert enough, but it's all buried up in this old clumsy, half-dead carcass. The worms will close their mortgage on it purty soon."
"But they haven't a mortgage on your soul," said Annie, in a low tone.
"You remember what I said to you a few days ago."
"Now bless you, Miss Annie, but it takes you to put in a 'word in season.' The Lord knows I'm a well-meanin' man, but I can't seem to get much furder. I've had an awful 'fall from grace,' my wife says. I did try to stop swearin', but that chap there—"
"Oh, excuse me," interrupted Annie. "Mr. Gregory, this is our friend and neighbor Mr. Tuggar. I was under the impression that you were acquainted," she added, with a mischievous look at her companion.
"We are. I have met this gentleman before," he replied, with a wry face. "Pardon the interruption, Mr. Tuggar, and please go on with your explanation."
"Mr. Gregory, I owe you a 'pology. I'm a well-meanin' man, and if I do any one a wrong I'm willin' to own it up and do the square thing. But I meant right by you and I meant right by John Walton when I thought you was stealin' his apples. I couldn't hit yer with a stun and knock yer off the fence, as I might a dozen years ago, so I took the next hardest thing I could lay hands on. If I'd known that you was kinder one of the family my words would have been rolls of butter."
"Well, Mr. Tuggar, it has turned out very well, for I would rather you had fired what you did than either stones or butter."
"Now my wife would say that that speech showed you was 'totally depraved.' And this brings me back to my 'fall from grace.' Now, yer see, to please my wife some and Miss Eulie more, I was tryin' cussed hard to stop swearin'—"
"Didn't you try a little for my sake, too?" interrupted Annie.
"Lord bless you, child; I don't have to try when you're around, for I don't think swearin'. Most folks rile me, and I get a-thinkin' swearin', and then 'fore I know it busts right out. You could take the wickedest cuss livin' to heaven in spite of himself if you would stay right by him all the time."
"I should 'rile' you, too, if I were with you long, for I get 'riled' myself sometimes."
"Do you, now?" asked Mr. Tuggar, looking at her admiringly. "Well, I'm mighty glad to hear it."
"O Daddy! glad to hear that I do wrong?"
"Can't help it, Miss Annie. I kinder like to know you're a little bit of a sinner. 'Tain't often I meet with a sinner, and I kind o' like 'em. My wife says she's a 'great sinner,' but she means she's a great saint. 'Twouldn't do for me to tell her she's a 'sinner.' Then Miss Eulie says she's a 'great sinner,' and between you and me that's the only fib I ever caught Miss Eulie in. Good Lord! there's no more sin in Miss Eulie's heart than there is specks of dirt on the little white ruff she wears about her neck that looks like the snow we had last April around the white hyacinths. She's kind of a half-sperit anyhow. Now your goodness, Miss Annie, is another kind. Your cheeks are so red, and eyes so black, and arms so round and fat—I've seen 'em when you was over here a-beatin' up good things for the old man—that you make me think of red and pink posies. I kinder think you might be a little bit of a sinner—just enough, you know, to make you understand how I and him there can be mighty big ones, and not be too hard on us for it."
"Mr. Tuggar, you are the man of all others to plead my cause."
"Now look here, young gentleman, you must do yer own pleadin'. It would be a 'sinful waste of time' though, as my wife would say—eh, Miss Annie? I never had no luck at pleadin' but once, and that was the worst luck of all."
Annie's face might well suggest "red posies" during the last remarks, and its expression was divided between a frown and a laugh.
"But I want you to understand," continued Daddy Tuggar, straightening himself up with dignity, and addressing Gregory, "that I'm not a mean cuss. All who know me know I'm a well-meanin' man. I try to do as I'd be done by. If I'm going through a man's field and find his bars down, so the cattle would get in the corn, I'd put 'em up—"
"Yes, Daddy, that is what you always say," interrupted Annie; "but you can't go through the fields any more and put up bars. You should try to do the duties that belong to your present state."
"But I've got the sperit to put up a man's bars, and it's all the same as if I did put 'em up," answered the old man, with some irritation. "Miss Eulie and the rest of yer is allers sayin' we must have the sperit of willingness to give up the hull world and suffer martyrdom on what looks in the picture like a big gridiron. She says we must have the sperit of them who was cold and hungry and the lions eat up and was sawn in two pieces and had an awful time generally for the sake of the Lord, and that's the way the Christians manage it nowadays. My wife gets all the money she can and keeps it, but she says she has the sperit to give up the hull world. I wish she'd give up enough of it to keep me in good terbacker. Mighty few nice bits would the old man git wasn't it for you and Miss Eulie. Then I watch the good people goin' to church. 'Mazin' few out wet Sundays. But no doubt they've all got the 'sperit' to go. They would jist as lief be sawn in two pieces 'in sperit' as not, if they can only sleep late in the mornin' and have a good dinner and save their Sunday-go-to-meetin' clothes from gettin' wet. It must be so, for the Lord gets mighty little worship out of the church on rainy Sundays. If it wasn't for you and Miss Eulie I don't know what would become of the old man and all the rest of the sick and feeble foiks around here. I ask my wife why she doesn't go to see 'em sometimes. She says she has the 'sperit to go,' but she hasn't time and strength. So I have the 'sperit' to put up a man's bars while I sit here and smoke, and what's more, Miss Annie, I did it as long as I was able."
"You did indeed, Daddy, and, though unintentionally, you have given me a good lesson. We little deserve to be mentioned with those Christians who in olden times suffered the loss of all things, and life itself."
"Lord bless you, child, I didn't mean you. Whether you've got the sperit to do a thing or not yer allers do it, and in a sweet, natteral way, as if you couldn't help it. When my wife enters on a good work it makes me think of a funeral. I'm 'mazin' glad you didn't live in old times, 'cause the lions would have got you sure 'nuff. Though, if it had to be, I would kinder liked to have been the lion:" and the old man's eyes twinkled humorously, while Gregory laughed heartily.
"Oh, Daddy Tuggar!" exclaimed Annie, "that is the most awful compliment I ever received. If you, with your spirit, were the only lion I had to deal with, I should never become a martyr. You shall have some jelly instead, and now I must go home in order to have it made before Sunday."
"Wait a moment," said Gregory. "You were about to tell us how I caused you to 'fall from grace.'"
"So I was, so I was, and I've been goin' round Robin Hood's barn ever since. Well, I'd been holdin' in on my swearin' a long time, 'cause I promised Miss Eulie I'd stop if I could. My wife said I was in quite a 'hopeful state,' while I felt all the time as if I was sort of bottled up and the cork might fly out any minute. Miss Eulie, she came and rejoiced over me that mornin', and my wife she looked so solemn (she allers does when she says she feels glad) that somehow I got nervous, and then my wife went to the store and didn't get the kind of terbacker I sent for, and I knew the cork was going to fly out. I was smokin' and in a sort of a doze, when the first thing I knowed a big stun rolled into the road, and there I saw a strange chap, as I thought, a stealin' John Walton's apples and knockin' down the fence. If they'd a been my apples I might have held in a little longer, but John Walton's—it was like a dam givin' way."
"It was, indeed," said Gregory, significantly. "It was like several."
"I knowed my wife heard me, and if she'd come right out and said, 'You've made a cussed old fool of yourself,' I think I would have felt better. I knowed she was goin' to speak about it and lament over it, and I wanted her to do it right away; but she put it off, and kept me on pins and needles for ever so long. At last she said with solemn joy, 'Thomas Tuggar, I told Miss Eulie I feared you was still in a state of natur, and, alas! I am right; but how she'll mourn, how great will be her disappointment, when she hears'; and then I fell into a 'state of natur' agin. Now, Miss Annie, if the Lord, Miss Eulie, and you all could only see I'm a well-meanin' man, and that I don't mean no disrespect to anybody; that it's only one of my old, rough ways that I learned from my father—and mother too, for that matter, I'm sorry to say—and have followed so long that it's bred in the bone, it would save a heap of worry. One must have some way of lettin' off steam. Now my wife she purses up her mouth so tight you couldn't stick a pin in it when she's riled. I often say to her, 'Do explode. Open your mouth and let it all out at once.' But she says it is not becoming for such as her ter 'explode.' But it will come out all the same, only it's like one of yer cold northeast, drizzlin', fizzlin' rain-storms. And now I've made a clean breast of it, I hope you'll kinder smooth matters over with Miss Eulie; and I hope you, sir, will just think of what I said as spoken to a stranger and not a friend of the family."
"Give me your hand, Mr. Tuggar. I hope we shall be the best of friends. I am coming over to have a smoke with you, and see if I can't fill your pipe with some tobacco that is like us both, 'in a state of natur.'"
A white-faced woman appeared at the door, and courtesying low to Miss Walton, called, "Husband, it's too late for you to be out; I fear your health will suffer."
"She's bound up in me, you see," said the old man, with a curious grimace. "Nothing but the reading of my will will ever comfort her when I die."
"Daddy, Daddy," said Annie, reproachfully, "have charity. Good-night; I will send you something nice for to-morrow."
An amused smile lingered on Gregory's face as they pursued their way homeward, now in the early twilight; but Annie's aspect was almost one of sadness. After a little he said, "Well, he is one of the oddest specimens of humanity I ever met."
She did not immediately reply, and he, looking at her, caught her expression.
"Why is your face so clouded, Miss Annie?" he asked. "You are not given to Mrs. Tuggar's style of 'solemn joy'?"
"What a perplexing mystery life is after all!" she replied, absently. "I really think poor old Daddy Tuggar speaks truly. He is a 'well-meaning' man, but he and many others remind me of one not having the slightest ear for music trying to catch a difficult harmony."
"Why is the harmony so difficult?" asked Gregory, bitterly.
"Perhaps it were better to ask, Why has humanity so disabled itself?"
"I do not think it matters much how you put the case. It amounts to the same thing. Something is required of us beyond our strength. The idea of punishing that old man for being what he is, when in the first place he inherited evil from his parents, and then was taught it by precept and example. I think he deserves more credit than blame."
"The trouble is, Mr. Gregory, evil carries its own punishment along with it every day. But I admit that we are surrounded by mystery on every side. Humanity, left to itself, is a hopeless problem. But one thing is certain: we are not responsible for questions beyond our ken. Moreover, many things that were complete mysteries to me as a child are now plain, and I ever hope to be taught something new every day. You and I at least have much to be grateful for in the fact that we neither inherited evil nor were taught it in any such degree as our poor neighbor."
"And you quietly prove, Miss Walton, by your last remark, that I am much more worthy of blame than your poor old neighbor."
"Then I said more than I meant," she answered, eagerly. "It is not for me to judge or condemn any one. The thought in my mind was how favored we have been in our parentage—our start in existence, as it were."
"But suppose one loses that vantage-ground?"
"I do not wish to suppose anything of the kind."
"But one can lose it utterly."
"I fear some can and do. But why dwell on a subject so unutterably sad and painful? You have not lost it, and, as I said before to-day, I will not dwell upon the disagreeable any more than I can help."
"Your opinion of me is poor enough already, Miss Walton, so I, too, will drop the subject."
They had now reached the house, and did ample justice to the supper awaiting them.
Between meals people can be very sentimental, morbid, and tragical. They can stare at life's deep mysteries and shudder or scoff, sigh or rejoice, according to their moral conditions. They can even grow cold with dread, as did Gregory, realizing that he had "lost his vantage-ground," his good start in the endless career. "She is steering across unknown seas to a peaceful, happy shore. I am drifting on those same mysterious waters I know not whither," he thought. But a few minutes after entering the cheerfully lighted dining-room he was giving his whole soul to muffins.
These homely and ever-recurring duties and pleasures of life have no doubt saved multitudes from madness. It would almost seem that they have also been the innocent cause of the destruction of many. There are times when the mind is almost evenly balanced between good and evil. Some powerful appeal or startling providence has aroused the sleeping spirit, or some vivifying truth has pierced the armor of indifference or prejudice, and quivered like an arrow in the soul, and the man remembers that he is a man, and not a brute that perishes. But just then the dinner-bell sounds. After the several courses, any physician can predict how the powers of that human organization must of necessity be employed the next few hours, and the partially awakened soul is like one who starts out of a doze and sleeps again. If the spiritual nature had only become sufficiently aroused to realize the situation, life might have been secured. Thought and feeling in some emergencies will do more than the grandest pulpit eloquence quenched by a Sunday dinner.
CHAPTER XV
MISS WALTON'S DREAM
The hickory fire burned cheerily in the parlor after tea, and all drew gladly around its welcome blaze. But even the delights of roasting chestnuts from the abundant spoils of the afternoon could not keep the heads of the children from drooping early.
Gregory was greatly fatigued, and soon went to his room also.
Sabbath morning dawned dim and uncertain, and by the time they had gathered at the breakfast-table, a northeast rain-storm had set in with a driving gale.
"I suppose you will go to church 'in sperit' this morning, as Mr.
Tuggar would say," said Gregory, addressing Annie.
"If I were on the sick list I should, but I have no such excuse."
"You seriously do not mean to ride two miles in such a storm as this?"
"No, not seriously, but very cheerfully and gladly."
"I do not think it is required of you, Miss Walton. Even your Bible states, 'I will have mercy and not sacrifice.'"
"The 'sacrifice' in my case would be in staying at home. I like to be out in a storm, and have plenty of warm blood to resist its chilling effects. But even were it otherwise, what hardship is there in my wrapping myself up in a waterproof and riding a few miles to a comfortable church? I shall come back with a grand appetite and a double zest for the wood fire."
"But it is not fair on the poor horses. They have no waterproofs or wood fires."
"I think I am not indifferent to the comfort of dumb animals, and though I drive a good deal, father can tell you I am not a 'whip.' Of all shams the most transparent is this tenderness for one's self and the horses on Sunday. I am often out in stormy weather during the week, and meet plenty of people on the road. The farmers drive to the village on rainy days because they can neither plow, sow, nor reap. But on even a cloudy Sabbath, with the faintest prospect of rain, there is but one text in the Bible for them: 'A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast.' People attend parties, the opera, and places of amusement no matter how bad the night. It is a miserable pretence to say that the weather keeps the majority at home from church. It is only an excuse. I should have a great deal more respect for them if they would say frankly, 'We would rather sleep, read a novel, dawdle around en deshabille, and gossip.' Half the time when they say it's too stormy to venture out (oh, the heroism of our Christian age!), they should go and thank God for the rain that is providing food for them and theirs.
"And granting that our Christian duties do involve some risk and hardship, does not the Bible ever speak of life as a warfare, a struggle, an agonizing for success? Do not armies often fight and march in the rain, and dumb beasts share their exposure? There is more at stake in this battle. In ancient times God commanded the bloody sacrifice of innumerable animals for the sake of moral and religious effect. Moral and religious effect is worth just as much now. Nothing can excuse wanton cruelty; but the soldier who spurs his horse against the enemy, and the sentinel who keeps his out in a winter storm, are not cruel. But many farmers about here will overwork and underfeed all the week, and on Sunday talk about being 'merciful to their beasts.' There won't be over twenty-five out to-day, and the Christian heroes, the sturdy yeomanry of the church, will be dozing and grumbling in chimney-corners. The languid half-heartedness of the church discourages me more than all the evil in the world."
Miss Walton stated her views in a quiet undertone of indignation, and not so much in answer to Gregory as in protest against a style of action utterly repugnant to her earnest, whole-souled nature. As he saw the young girl's face light up with the will and purpose to be loyal to a noble cause, his own aimless, self-pleasing life seemed petty and contemptible indeed, and again he had that painful sense of humiliation which Miss Walton unwittingly caused him; but, as was often his way, he laughed the matter off by saying, "There is no need of my going to-day, for I have had my sermon, and a better one than you will hear. Still, such is the effect of your homily that I am inclined to ask you to take me with you."
Annie's manner changed instantly, and she smilingly answered, "You will find an arm-chair before a blazing fire in your room upstairs, and an arm-chair before a blazing fire in the parlor, and you can vacillate between them at your pleasure."
"As a vacillating man should, perhaps you might add."
"I add nothing of the kind."
"Will you never let me go to church with you again?"
"Certainly, after what you said, any pleasant day."
"Why can't I have the privilege of being a martyr as well as yourself?"
"I am not a martyr. I would far rather go out to-day than stay at home."
"It will be very lonely without you."
"Oh, you are the martyr then, after all. I hope you will have sufficient fortitude to endure, and doze comfortably during the two hours of my absence."
"Now you are satirical on Sunday, Miss Walton. Let that burden your conscience. I'm going to ask your father if I may go."
"Of course you will act at your pleasure," said Mr. Walton, "but I think, in your present state of health, Annie has suggested the wiser and safer thing to do."
"I should probably be ill on your hands if I went, so I submit; but I wish you to take note, Miss Walton, that I have the 'sperit to go.'"
The arm-chairs were cosey and comfortable, and the hickory wood turned, as is its wont, into glowing and fragrant coals, but the house grew chill and empty the moment that Annie left. Though Mr. Walton and Miss Eulie accompanied her, their absence was rather welcome, but he felt sure that Annie could have beguiled the heavy-footed hours.
"She has some unexplained power of making me forget my miserable self," he muttered.
And yet, left to himself, he had now nothing to do but think, and a fearful time he had of it, lowering at the fire, in the arm-chair, from which he scarcely stirred.
"I have lost my vantage-ground," he groaned—"lost it utterly. I am not even a 'well-meaning man.' I purpose evil against this freshest, purest spirit I have ever known since in this house I looked into my mother's eyes. I am worse than the wild Arab of the desert. I have eaten salt with them; I have partaken of their generous hospitality, given so cordially for the sake of one that is dead, and in return have wounded their most sacred feelings, and now propose to prove the daughter a creature that I can go away and despise. Instead of being glad that there is one in the world noble and good, even though by accident—instead of noting with pleasure that every sweet flower has not become a weed—I wish to drag her down to my own wretched level, or else I would have her exhibit sufficient weakness to show that she would go as far as she was tempted to go. A decent devil could hardly wish her worse. I would like to see her show the same spirit that animates Miss Belle St. Glair of New York, or Mrs. Grobb, my former adored Miss Bently—creatures that I despise as I do myself, and what more could I say? If I could only cause her to show some of their characteristics the reproach of her life would pass away, and I should be confirmed in my belief that humanity's unutterable degradation is its misfortune, and the blame should rest elsewhere than on us. How absurd to blame water for running down hill! Give man or woman half a chance, that is, before habits are fixed, and they plunge faster down the inclined moral plane. And the plague of it is, this seeming axiom does not satisfy me. What business has my conscience, with a lash of scorpion stings, to punish me this and every day that I permit myself to think? Did I not try for years to be better? Did I not resist the infernal gravitation? and yet I am falling still. I never did anything so mean and low before as I am doing now. If it is my nature to do evil, why should I not do it without compunction? And as I look downward—there is no looking forward for me—there seems no evil thing that I could not do if so inclined. Here in this home of my childhood, this sacred atmosphere that my mother breathed, I would besmirch the character of one who as yet is pure and good, with a nature like a white hyacinth in spring. I see the vileness of the act, I loathe it, and yet it fascinates me, and I have no power to resist. Why should a stern, condemning voice declare in recesses of my soul, 'You could and should resist'? For years I have been daily yielding to temptation, and conscience as often pronounces sentence against me. When will the hateful farce cease? Multitudes appear to sin without thought or remorse. Why cannot I? It's my mother's doings, I suppose. A plague upon the early memories of this place. Will they keep me upon the rack forever?"
He rose, strode up and down the parlor, and clenched his hands in passionate protest against himself, his destiny, and the God who made him.
A chillness, resulting partly from dread and partly from the wild storm raging without, caused him to heap up the hearth with wood. It speedily leaped into flame, and, covering his face with his hands, he sat cowering before it. A vain but frequent thought recurred to him with double power.
"Oh that I could cease to exist, and lose this miserable consciousness! Oh that, like this wood, I could be aflame with intense, passionate life, and then lose identity, memory, and everything that makes me, and pass into other forms. Nay, more, if I had my wish, I would become nothing here and now."
The crackling of flames and the rush of wind and rain against the windows had caused the sound of wheels, and a light step in the room, to be unheard.
He was aroused by Miss Walton, who asked, "Mr. Gregory, are you ill?"
He raised his woe-begone face to hers, and said, almost irritably, "Yes—no—or at least I am as well as I ever expect to be, and perhaps better." Then with a sudden impulse he asked, "Does annihilation seem such a dreadful thing to you?"
"What! the losing of an eternity of keen enjoyment? Could anything be more dreadful! Really, Mr. Gregory, brooding here alone has not been good for you. Why do you not think of pleasant things?"
"For the same reason that a man with a raging toothache does not have pleasant sensations," he answered, with a grim smile.
"I admit the force of your reply, though I do not think the case exactly parallel. The mind is not as helpless as the body. Still, I believe it is true that when the body is suffering the mind is apt to become the prey of all sorts of morbid fancies, and you do look really ill. I wish I could give you some of my rampant health and spirits to-day. Facing the October storm has done me good every way, and I am ravenous for dinner."
He looked at her enviously as she stood before him, with her waterproof, still covered with rain-drops, partially thrown back and revealing the outline of a form which, though not stout, was suggestive of health and strength. She seemed, with her warm, high color, like a hardy flower covered with spray. Instead of shrinking feebly and delicately from the harsher moods of nature, and coming in pinched and shivering, she had felt the blood in her veins and all the wheels of life quickened by the gale.
"Miss Walton," he said, with a glimmer of a smile, "do you know that you are very different from most young ladies? You and nature evidently have some deep secrets between you. I half believe you never will grow old, but are one of the perennials. I am glad you have come home, for you seem to bring a little of yesterday's sunshine into the dreary house."
As they returned to the parlor after dinner, Gregory remarked, "Miss Walton, what can you do to interest me this afternoon, for I am devoured with ennui?"
She turned upon him rather quickly and said, "A young man like you has no business to be 'devoured with ennui.' Why not engage in some pursuit, or take up some subject that will interest you and stir your pulse?"
With a touch of his old mock gallantry he bowed and said, "In you I see just the subject, and am delighted to think I'm going to have you all to myself this rainy afternoon."
With a half-vexed laugh and somewhat heightened color she answered, "I imagine you won't have me all to yourself long."
She had hardly spoken the words before the children bounded in, exclaiming, "Now, Aunt Annie, for our stories."
"You see, Mr. Gregory, here are previous and counter-claims already."
"I wish I knew of some way of successfully disputing them."
"It would be difficult to find. Well, come, little people, we will go into the sitting-room and not disturb Mr. Gregory."
"Now, I protest against that," he said. "You might at least let me be one of the children."
"But the trouble is, you won't be one, but will sit by criticising and laughing at our infantile talk."
"Now you do me wrong. I will be as good as I can, and if you knew how long and dreary the day has been you would not refuse."
She looked at him keenly for a moment, and then said, a little doubtfully, "Well, I will try for once. Run and get your favorite Sunday books, children."
When they were alone he asked, "How can you permit these youngsters to be such a burden?"
"They are not a burden," she answered.
"But a nurse could take care of them and keep them quiet."
"If their father and mother were living they would not think 'keeping them quiet' all their duty toward them, nor do I, to whom they were left as a sacred trust."
"That awful word 'duty' rules you, Miss Walton, with a rod of iron."
"Do I seem like a harshly driven slave?" she asked, smilingly.
"No, and I cannot understand you."
"That is because your philosophy of life is wrong. You still belong to that old school who would have it that sun, moon, and stars revolve around the earth. But here are the books, and if you are to be one of the children you must do as I bid you—be still and listen."
It was strange to Gregory how content he was to obey. He was surprised at his interest in the old Bible stories told in childish language, and as Annie stopped to explain a point or answer a question, he found himself listening as did the eager little boy sitting on the floor at her feet. The hackneyed man of the world could not understand how the true, simple language of nature, like the little brown blossoms of lichens, has a beauty of its own.
At the same time he had a growing consciousness that perhaps there was something in the reader also which mainly held his interest. It was pleasant to listen to the low, musical voice. It was pleasant to see the red lips drop the words so easily yet so distinctly, and chief of all was the consciousness of a vitalized presence that made the room seem full when she was in it, and empty when she was absent, though all others remained.
He truly shared the children's regret when at last she said, "Now I am tired, and must go upstairs and rest awhile before supper, after which we will have some music. You can go into the sitting-room and look at the pictures till the tea-bell rings. Mr. Gregory, will my excuse to the children answer for you also?"
"I suppose it must, though I have no pictures to look at."
She suddenly appeared to change her mind, and said, briskly, "Come, sir, what you need is work for others. I have read to you, and you ought to be willing to read to me. If you please, I will rest in the arm-chair here instead of in my room."
"I will take your medicine," he said, eagerly, "without a wry face, though an indifferent reader, while I think you are a remarkably good one; and let me tell you it is one of the rarest accomplishments we find. You shall also choose the book."
"What unaccountable amiableness!" she replied, laughing. "I fear I shall reward you by going to sleep."
"Very well, anything so I am not left alone again. I am wretched company for myself."
"Oh, it is not for my sake you are so good, after all!"
"You think me a selfish wretch, Miss Walton."
"I think you are like myself, capable of much improvement. But I wish to rest, and you must not talk, but read. There is the 'Schonberg-Cotta Family.' I have been over it two or three times, so if I lose the thread of the story it does not matter."
He wheeled the arm-chair up to the fire for her, and for a while she listened with interest; but at last her lids drooped and soon closed, and her regular breathing showed that she was sleeping. His voice sank in lower and lower monotone lest his sudden stopping should awaken her, then he laid down his book and read a different story in the pure young face turned toward him.
"It is not beautiful," he thought, "but it is a real, good face. I should not be attracted toward it in a thronged and brilliant drawing-room. I might not notice it on Fifth Avenue, but if I were ill and in deep trouble, it is just such a face as I should like to see bending over me. Am I not ill and in deep trouble? I have lost my health and lost my manhood. What worse disasters this side death can I experience? Be careful, Walter Gregory, you may be breaking the one clew that can lead you out of the labyrinth. You may be seeking to palsy the one hand that can help you. Mother believed in a special Providence. Is it her suggestion that now flashes in my mind that God in mercy has brought me to this place of sacred memories, and given me the companionship of this good woman, that the bitter waters of my life may be sweetened? I do not know from whom else it can come.
"And yet the infernal fascination of evil! I cannot—I will not give up my purpose toward her. Vain dreams! Miss Walton or an angel of light could not reclaim me. My impetus downward is too great.
"Oh, the rest and peace of that face! Physical rest and a quiet, happy spirit dwell in every line. She sleeps there like a child, little dreaming that a demon is watching her. But she says that she is guarded. Perhaps she is. A strong viewless one with a flaming sword may stand between her and me.
"Weak fool! Enough of this. I shall carry out my experiment fully, and when I have succeeded or failed, I can come to some conclusion on matters now in doubt.
"I should like to kiss those red parted lips. I wonder what she would do if I did?" Annie's brow darkened into a frown. Suddenly she started up and looked at him, but seemed satisfied from his distance and motionless aspect.
"What is the matter?" he asked.
"Oh, nothing. I had a dream," she said, with a slight flush.
"Please tell it," he said, though he feared her answer.
"You will not like it. Besides, it's too absurd."
"You pique my curiosity. Tell it by all means."
"Well, then, you mustn't be angry; and remember, I have no faith in sleeping vagaries. I dreamed that you were transformed into a large tiger, and came stealthily to bite me."
He was startled as he recalled his thought at the moment of her awaking, but had the presence of mind to say, "Let me interpret the dream."
"Well."
"You know, I suppose, that dreams go by contraries. Suppose a true friend wished to steal a kiss in your unconsciousness."
"True friends do not steal from us," she replied, laughing. "I don't know whether it was safe to let you read me to sleep?"
"It's not wrong to be tempted, is it? One can't help that. As Mr. Tuggar says, I might have the 'sperit to do it,' and yet remain quietly in my chair, as I have."
"You make an admission in your explanation. Well, it was queer," she added, absently.
Gregory thought so too, and was annoyed at her unexpected clairvoyant powers. But he said, as if a little piqued, "If you think me a tiger you had better not sleep within my reach, or you may find your face sadly mutilated on awaking."
"Nonsense," she said. "Mr. Gregory, you are a gentleman. We are talking like foolish children."
The tea-bell now rang, and Gregory obeyed its summons in a very perplexed state. His manner was rather absent during the meal, but Annie seemed to take pains to be kind and reassuring. The day, so far from being a restraint, appeared one of habitual cheerfulness, which even the dreary storm without could not dampen.
"We shall have a grand sing to-night with the assistance of your voice, I hope, Mr. Gregory," said Mr. Walton, as they all adjourned to the parlor.
"I do not sing by note," he replied. "When I can I will join you, though I much prefer listening to Miss Walton."
"Miss Walton prefers nothing of the kind, and we shall sing only what you know," she said, with a smiling glance at him over her shoulder, as she was making selections from the music-stand.
Soon they were all standing round the piano, save Mr. Walton, who sat near in his arm-chair, his face the picture of placid enjoyment as he looked on the little group so dear to him. They began with the children's favorites from the Sabbath-school books, the little boy dutifully finding the place for his grandfather. Many of them were the same that Gregory had sung long years before, standing in the same place, a child like Johnny, and the vivid memories thus recalled made his voice a little husky occasionally. Annie once gave him a quick look of sympathy, not curious but appreciative.
"She seems to know what is passing in my soul," he thought; "I never knew a woman with such intuitions."
The combined result of their voices was true home music, in which were blended the tones of childhood and age. Annie, with her sweet soprano, led, and gave time and key to them all, very much as by the force and loveliness of her character she influenced the daily harmony of their lives. The children, with their imitative faculty, seemed to gather from her lips how to follow with fair correctness, and they chirped through the tunes like two intelligent robins. Miss Eulie sang a sweet though rather faint alto that was like a low minor key in a happy life. Mr. Walton's melody was rather that of the heart, for his voice was returning to the weakness of childhood, and his ear was scarcely quick enough for the rapid changes of the air, and yet, unless "grandpa" joined with them, all felt that the circle was incomplete.
Gregory was a foreign element in the little group, almost a stranger to its personnel, and more estranged from the sacred meanings and feeling of the hour; yet such was the power of example, so strong were the sweet home-spells of this Christian family, that to his surprise he found himself entering with zest into a scene that on the Sabbath before he would have regarded as an unmitigated bore. The thought flashed across him, "How some of my club acquaintances would laugh to see me standing between two children singing Sabbath-school hymns!"
It was also a sad truth that he could go away from all present influences to spend the next Sabbath at his club in the ordinary style.
When the children's hour had passed and they had been tucked away to peaceful spring-time dreams, though a storm, the precursor of winter, raged without, Annie returned to the parlor and said, "Now, Mr. Gregory, we can have some singing more to your taste."
"I have been one of the children to-day," he replied, "so you must let me off with them from any further singing myself."
"If you insist on playing the children's role you must go to bed. I have some grand old hymns that I've been wishing to try with you."
"Indeed, Miss Walton, I am but half a man. At the risk of your contempt I must say in frankness that my whole physical nature yearns for my arm-chair. But please do not call my weakness laziness. If you will sing to me just what you please, according to your mood, I for one will be grateful."
"Even a dragon could not resist such an appeal," said Annie, laughing. She sat down to her piano and soon partially forgot her audience, in an old Sabbath evening habit, well known to natural musicians, of expressing her deeper and more sacred feelings in words and notes that harmonized with them. Gregory sat and listened as the young girl unwittingly revealed a new element in her nature.
In her every-day life she appeared to him full of force and power, practical and resolute. To one of his sporting tastes she suggested a mettled steed whose high spirit was kept in check by thorough training. Her conversation was piquant, at times a little brusque, and utterly devoid of sentimentality. But now her choice of poetic thought and her tones revealed a wealth of womanly tenderness, and he was compelled to feel that her religion was not legal and cold, a system of duties, beliefs, and restraints, but something that seemed to stir the depths of her soul with mystic longings, and overflow her heart with love. She was not adoring the Creator, nor paying homage to a king; but, as the perfume rises from a flower, so her voice and manner seemed the natural expression of a true, strong affection for God Himself, not afar off, but known as a near and dear friend. In her sweet tones there was not the faintest suggestion of the effect or style that a professional singer would aim at. She thought no more of these than would a thrush swaying on its spray in the twilight of a June evening. As unaffectedly as the bird she sang according to the inward promptings of a nature purified and made lovely by the grace of God.
No one not utterly given over to evil could have listened unmoved, still less Gregory, with his sensitive, beauty-loving, though perverted nature. The spirit of David's harp again breathed its divine peace on his sin-disquieted soul. The words of old Daddy Tuggar flashed across him, and he muttered:
"Yes, she could take even me to heaven, 'if she stayed right by me.'"
When finally, with heartfelt sincerity, she sang the following simple words to an air that seemed a part of them, he envied her from the depths of his soul, and felt that he would readily barter away any earthly possession and life itself for a like faith:
Nearer, nearer, ever nearer,
Come I gladly unto Thee;
And the days are growing brighter
With Thy presence nearer me.
Though a pilgrim, not a stranger;
This Thy land, and I Thine own;
At Thy side, thus free from danger,
Find I paths with flowers strown.
Voices varied, nature speaking,
Call to me on every side;
Friends and kindred give their greeting,
In Thy sunshine I abide.
Though my way were flinty, thorny,
Were I sure it led to Thee,
Could I pass one day forlornly,
Home and rest so near to me?
Then she brought the old family Bible, indicating that after that hour she was in no mood for commonplace conversation. In the hush that followed, the good old man reverently read a favorite passage, which seemed not to consist of cold, printed words, but to be a part of a loving letter sent by the Divine Father to His absent children.
As such it was received by all save Gregory. He sat among them as a stranger and an alien, cut off by his own acts from those ties which make one household of earth and heaven. But such was the influence of the evening upon him that he realized as never before his loss and loneliness. He longed intensely to share in their feelings, and to appropriate the words of love and promise that Mr. Walton read.
The prayer that followed was so tender, so full of heart-felt interest in his guest, that Gregory's feelings were deeply touched. He arose from his knees, and again shaded his face to hide the traces of his emotion.
When at last he looked up, Mr. Walton was quietly reading, and the ladies had retired. He rose and bade Mr. Walton good-night with a strong but silent grasp of the hand.
The thought flashed across him as he went to his room, that after this evening and the grasp as of friendship he had just given the father, he could not in the faintest degree meditate evil against the daughter. But so conscious was he of moral weakness, so self-distrustful in view of many broken resolutions, that he dared resolve on nothing. He at last fell into a troubled sleep with the vain, regretful thought, "Oh that I had not lost my vantage-ground! Oh that I could live my life over again!"
CHAPTER XVI
AN ACCIDENT IN THE MOUNTAINS
In view of her recent stormy mood, Nature seemed full of regretful relentings on Monday, and, as if to make amends for her harshness, assumed something of a summer softness. The sun had not the glaring brightness that dazzles, and the atmosphere, purified by the recent rain, revealed through its crystal depths objects with unusual distinctness.
"It is a splendid day for a mountain ramble," said Annie, with vivacity, at the breakfast-table.
"Why don't you take old Dolly and the mountain wagon, and show Mr.
Gregory some of our fine views this afternoon?" asked Mr. Walton.
"Nothing would please me more," said his daughter, cordially; "that is, if Mr. Gregory feels equal to the fatigue."
"I'd be at my last gasp if I refused such an offer," said Gregory, eagerly. "It would do me good, for I feel much stronger than when I first came, and Miss Walton's society is the best tonic I know of."
"Very well," said she, laughing. "You shall take me this afternoon as a continuation of the tonic treatment under which you say you are improving."
"To carry on the medical figure," he replied, "I fear that I am to you the embodiment of the depletive system."
"From my feelings this bright morning you have very little effect. I prescribe for you a quiet forenoon, as our mountain roads will give you an awful jolting. You, if not your medicine, will be well shaken to-day."
"You are my medicine, as I understand it, so I shall take it according to the old orthodox couplet."
"No, the mountain is your medicine, and I anticipate no earthquakes."
"It is settled then," said Mr. Walton, smiling, "that you adopt Mahomet's compromise and go to the mountain. I will tell Jeff to fit you out in suitable style."
Gregory, in excellent spirits, retired to his room for a quiet morning. The prospect for the afternoon pleased him greatly, and a long tete-a-tete with Annie among the grand and beautiful solitudes of nature had for him an attraction that he could scarcely understand.
"She is just the one for a companion on such an expedition," he said to himself. "She seems a part of the scenes we shall look upon. The free, strong mountain spirit breathes in her every word and act. Old Greek mythology would certainly make her a nymph of the hills."
After dinner they started, Gregory's interest centring mainly in his companion, but Annie regarding him as a mere accessory to a sort of half-holiday in her busy life, and expecting more enjoyment from the scenery and the exhilarating air than from his best efforts to entertain her. And yet in this respect she was agreeably disappointed. Gregory was in a mood that he scarcely understood himself. If Annie had been somewhat vain and shallow, though possessing many other good traits, with the practiced skill of a society man he would have made the most of these weaknesses, amused himself with a piquant flirtation, and soon have been ready for his departure for New York with a contemptuous French shrug at the whole affair. But her weaknesses did not lie in that direction. Her naturally truthful and earnest nature, deepened and strengthened by Christian principle, from the first had foiled his unworthy purposes, and disturbed his contemptuous cynicism. Then as he was compelled to believe in her reality, her truth and nobleness, all that was in his own nature responsive to these traits began to assert itself. Even while he clung to it and felt that he had no power to escape it, the evil of his life grew more hateful to him, and he condemned himself with increasing bitterness. When good influences are felt in a man's soul, evil seems to become specially active. The kingdom of darkness disputes every inch of its ill-gotten power. Winter passes away in March storms. It is the still cold of indifference that is nearest akin to death.
The visit to his old home, and the influence of Annie Walton, were creating March weather in Walter Gregory's soul. There were a few genial moods like gleams of early spring sunshine. There were sudden relentings and passionate longings for better life, as at times gentle, frost-relaxing showers soften the flinty ground. There were fierce spiritual conflicts, wild questionings, doubts, fears, and forebodings, and sometimes despair, as in this gusty month nature often seems resolving itself back to primeval chaos. But too often his mood was that of cold hard scepticism, the frost of midwinter. The impetus of his evil life would evidently be long in spending itself.
And yet the quiet influence of the hallowed Sabbath evening, and Annie Walton's hymns of faith and love, could not readily be lost. The father's prayer still echoed in his soul, and even to him it seemed that the heavens could not be deaf to such entreaty. These things affected him as no direct appeals possibly could. They were like the gentle but irresistible south wind.
He was now simply drifting. He had not definitely abandoned his purpose of tempting Annie, nor did he consciously thrust it from him. Quite convinced that she was what she seemed, and doubting greatly whether during his brief visit there would be time to affect her mind seriously by any evil influences he could bring to bear, and won unwittingly by her pure spirit to better things himself, he let the new and unexpected influence have full play.
He was like a man who finds himself in the current above Niagara, and gives up in despair, allowing his boat to glide onward to the fatal plunge. A breeze springs up and blows against the current. He spreads a sail and finds his downward progress checked. If the wind increases and blows steadily, he may stem the rushing tide and reach smooth, safe waters.
A faint glimmering of hope began to dawn in his heart. An unexpected gale from heaven, blowing against the current of evil, made it seem possible that he too might gain the still waters of a peaceful faith. But the hope dwelt in his mind more as a passing thought, a possibility, than an expectation.
In his wavering state the turn of the scales would depend mainly upon the mood of his companion. If she had been trifling and inclined to flirt, full of frivolous nonsense, bent upon having a good time in the frequent acceptation of the phrase, little recking the consequences of words or acts, as is often the case with girls in the main good-hearted and well-meaning, Gregory would have fallen in with such a mood and pushed it to the extreme.
But Annie was simply herself, bright and exhilarating as the October sunshine, but as pure and strong. She was ready for jest and repartee. She showed almost a childish delight in every odd and pretty thing that met her eye, but never for a moment permitted her companion to lose respect for her.
Her cheeks were like the crimson maple-leaves which overhung them. Her eyes were like the dark sparkle of the little brook as it emerged from the causeway over which they drove. Her brown hair, tossed by the wind, escaped somewhat from its restraints and enhanced the whiteness of her neck, and the thought occurred to Gregory more than once, "If she is not pretty, I never saw a face more pleasant to look at."
The wish to gain her esteem and friendship grew stronger every moment, and he exerted himself to the utmost to please her. Abandoning utterly his gallantry, his morbid cynicism, he came out into the honest sunlight of truth, where Annie's mind dwelt, and directed the conversation to subjects concerning which, as an educated and travelled man, he could speak frankly and intelligently. Annie had strong social tastes and the fondness for companionship natural to the young, and she was surprised to find how he stimulated and interested her mind, and how much they had in common. He appeared to understand her immediately, and to lead her thoughts to new and exciting flights.
It was their purpose to cross a spur of the main mountain range. After a long and toilsome climb, stopping to give Dolly many a breathing spell, they at last reached the brow of the wooded height, and turned to look at the autumn landscape glimmering in the bright October sunshine. It is impossible by either pen or brush to give a true picture of wide reaches of broken and beautiful country, as seen from some of the more favored points of outlook among the Highlands on the Hudson. The loveliness of a pretty bit of scenery or of a landscape may be enhanced by art, but the impressive grandeur of nature, when the feature of vast and varied expanse predominates, cannot be adequately expressed. The mind itself is oppressed by the extensiveness of the scene, and tends to select some definite object, as a village, hamlet, or tree-embowered farmhouse, on which to dwell. These accord more with the finite nature of the beholder. Spires and curling wreaths of smoke suggested to Annie and Gregory many a simple altar and quiet hearth, around which gathered the homely, contented life, spiritual and domestic, of those who occupied their own little niche in the great world, and were all unburdened with thought or care for the indefinite regions that stretched away beyond their narrow circle of daily acquaintance. Only God can give to the whole of His creation the all-seeing gaze that we bestow upon some familiar scene. His glance around the globe is like that of a mother around her nursery, with her little children grouped at her feet.
The laden orchards, with men climbing long ladders, and boys in the topmost branches looking in the distance like huge squirrels, were pleasant objects to the mountain ramblers. Huskers could be discerned in the nearer cornfields, and the great yellow ears glistened momentarily in the light, as they were tossed into golden heaps. There was no hum of industry as from a manufacturing village, or roar of turbulent life as from a city, but only the quiet evidence to the eye of a life kindred to that which nature so silently and beautifully elaborates.
"How insignificant we are!" said Gregory, gloomily; "how the great world goes right on without us! It is the same when one dies and leaves it, as we left it by climbing this mountain. In the main we are unknown and uncared for, and even to those who know us it is soon the same as if we had never been."
"But the world cannot go on without God. Though forgotten, He never forgets! His friends need never have the sense of being lost or lonely—any more than a child travelling with his father in a foreign land among indifferent strangers. God does not look at us, His creatures, as we do at the foliage of these forests, seeing only the general effect. He sees each one as directly as I now look at you."
"I wish I could believe He looked as kindly."
"I wish you could, Mr. Gregory. It is sad to me that people can't believe what is so true. The fondest look your mother ever gave you was cold compared with the yearning, loving face God turns toward every one of us, even as we go away from Him."
He looked at her earnestly for a moment and saw that sincerity was written on her face. He shook his head sadly, and then said, rather abruptly, "Those lengthening shadows remind us that we must be on our way"; and then their thoughts dwelt on lighter subjects as they ascended another lofty mountain terrace, and paused again to scan the wider prospect that made the sense of daily life in the valleys below as remote as the world seems to the hermit in his devotional seclusion. Then they began to descend the sloping plateau which inclined toward the brow of the hill overlooking the region of the Walton residence.
After one or two hours of broken but very agreeable conversation Annie suddenly sighed deeply.
"Now, Miss Walton," said Gregory, "that sigh came from the depths. What hidden sorrow could have caused it?"
With a slight flush and laugh, she said, "It was caused by a mere passing thought, like that cloud there sailing over the mountain slope."
"Your simile is so pretty that I should like to know the thought."
"I hardly know whether to tell it to you. It might have the same effect as if that cloud should expand and cover the sky."
"Might not the telling also have the same effect as if the cloud were dissipated altogether?"
She looked at him quickly and said, "How apt your answer is! Yes, it might if you would be sensible. I do not know you so very well yet. Are you not a little ready to take offence?"
"You do not look as if about to say anything I should resent very deeply. But I promise that the cloud shall vanish."
"I am not so sure about that. The cloud represents my thought; and yet I hope it may eventually vanish utterly. The thought occurred to me after the pleasant hours of this afternoon what congenial friends we might be."
"And that caused you to sigh so deeply?"
"I laid emphasis on the word might."
"And why should you, Miss Annie? Why need you?" he asked, eagerly.
"You have shown a great deal of tact and consideration this afternoon, Mr. Gregory, in choosing topics on which we could agree, or about which it is as nice to differ a little. I wish it were the same in regard to those things that make up one's life, as it were;" and she looked at him closely to see how he would take this.
After a moment he said, a little bitterly, "In order to be your friend, must one look at everything through the same colored glass that you employ?"
"Oh, no," she replied, earnestly; "it is not fair to say that. But you seem almost hostile to all that I love best and think most of, and my sigh was rather an earnest and oft-recurring wish that it were otherwise."
Again he was silent for a short time, then said, with sudden vehemence, "And I also wish it were otherwise"; adding more quietly, "but it is not, Miss Walton. You know me too well, even if I wished to deceive you. And yet I would give a great deal for such a friendship as you could bestow. Why can you not give it as it is? The Founder of your faith was a friend of publicans and sinners."
"He was indeed their friend, and has been ever since," she answered. "But was it not natural that He found more that was attractive and congenial in that little group of disciples who were learning to know and believe in Him?"
"I understand you, Miss Walton. I was unfortunate in my illustration, and you have turned it against me. You can be my friend, as the missionary is the friend of the heathen."
"You go to extremes, Mr. Gregory, and are hardly fair. I am not a missionary, nor are you a heathen. I make my meaning clear when I echo your thought of a moment ago, and wish that just such a friendship might exist between us as that between your father and mine."
"I am what I am," he said, with genuine sadness.
"I wish you had my faith in the possibilities of the future," she replied, turning brightly toward him.
But he shook his head, saying, "I have about lost all faith in everything as far as I am concerned. Still I feel that if any one could do me any good, you might, but I fear it is a hopeless task." Then he changed the subject in such a way as to show that it was painful, and that he preferred it should be dropped.
After all, the cloud had overcast the sky. The inevitable separation between those guided by divine principles and those controlled by earthly influences began to dawn upon him. He caught a glimpse of the "great gulf," that is ever "fixed" between the good and evil in their deepest consciousness. The "loneliness of guilt" chilled and oppressed him, even with the cheery, sympathetic companion at his side. But he hid his feelings under a forced gayety, in which Annie joined somewhat, though it gave her a vague shiver of pain. She felt they had been en rapport for a little while, but now a change had come, even as the damp and chill of approaching night were taking the place of genial sunshine.
Suddenly she said, as they were riding along on the comparatively level plateau among thick copse-wood and overshadowing trees that already created a premature twilight, "It is strange we do not come out on the brow of the mountain overlooking our home. This road does not seem familiar either, though it is two or three years since I have been over it, and then Jeff drove. I thought I knew the way well. Can it be possible we have taken the wrong turning?"
"I ought to be familiar with these roads, Miss Walton, but I am sorry to say I too am confused. I hunted over these hills to some extent when a boy, but did not pay much heed to the roads, as I took my own courses through the woods."
"I think I must be right," said Annie, after a little time; "the brow of the hill must be near;" and they hastened the old horse along as fast as possible under the circumstances. But the road continually grew rougher and gave evidence of very little travel, and the evening deepened rapidly. At last they resolved to turn round at the first place that would permit of it, but this was not readily found, there being only a single wheel-track, which now stretched away before them like a narrow cut between banks of foliage, that looked solid in the increasing darkness; the road also was full of rocks, loose stones, and deep ruts, over which the wagon jolted painfully. With a less sure-footed horse than Dolly they would soon have come to grief. Gregory was becoming greatly fatigued, though he strove to hide it, and both were filled with genuine uneasiness at the prospect before them. To make matters seemingly desperate, as they were descending a little hill a fore-wheel caught between two stones and was wrenched sharply off. Quick, agile Annie sprang as she felt the wagon giving, but Walter was thrown out among the brushwood by the roadside. Though scratched and bruised, he was not seriously hurt, and as quickly as possible came to the assistance of his companion. He found her standing by Dolly's head, holding and soothing the startled beast. Apparently she was unhurt. They looked searchingly at the dusky forest, their broken vehicle, and then at each other. Words were unnecessary to explain the awkwardness of their situation.
CHAPTER XVII
"PROMISE OR DIE"
While they were thus standing irresolute after the accident, suddenly a light glimmered upon them. It appeared to come from a house standing a little off from the road. "Shall I leave you here and go for assistance?" asked Walter.
"I think I would rather go with you. Dolly will stand, and I do not wish to be left alone."
They soon found a grassy path leading to a small house, from which the light shone but faintly through closely curtained windows. They met no one, nor were their footsteps heard till they knocked at the door. A gruff voice said, "Come in," and a huge bull-dog started up from near the fire with a savage growl.
They entered. A middle-aged man with his coat off sat at work with his back toward them. He rose hastily and stared at them with a strangely blended look of consternation and anger.
"Call off your dog," said Gregory, sharply.
"Down, Bull," said the man, harshly, and the dog slunk growling into a corner, but with a watchful, ugly gleam in his eyes.
The man's expression was quite as sinister and threatening.