his mate. "He's got the look of a bold commander, anyway, and a voice
an' eye that would wile a bird from a bush." But at this moment the
gundalow bumped heavily against the wharf, and there was no more time
for general conversation. Mary Hamilton paddled steadily up river in the
smooth water of the eddy, now and then working hard to get round some
rocky point that bit into the hurrying stream. The wind was driving the
ebbing tide before it, so that the water had fallen quickly, and
sometimes the still dripping boughs of overhanging alders and oaks swept
the canoe from end to end, and spattered the kneeling girl with a cold
shower by way of greeting. Sometimes a musquash splashed into the water
or scuttled into his chilly hole under the bank, clattering an untidy
heap of empty mussel shells as he went. All the shy little beasts,
weasels and minks and squirrels, made haste to disappear before this
harmless voyager, and came back again as she passed. The great
fishhawks and crows sailed high overhead, secure but curious, and harder
for civilization to dispossess of their rights than wild creatures that
lived aground.
The air was dry and sweet, as if snow were coming, and all the falling
leaves were down. Here and there might linger a tuft of latest frost
flowers in a sheltered place, and the witch-hazel in the thickets was
still sprinkled with bright bloom. Mary stopped once under the shore
where a bough of this strange, spring-in-autumn flower grew over the
water, and broke some twigs to lay gently before her in the canoe. The
old Indian, last descendant of the chief Passaconaway, who had made the
light craft and taught her to guide it, had taught her many other things
of his wild and wise inheritance. This flower of mystery brought up
deep associations with that gentle-hearted old friend, the child of
savagery and a shadowy past.
The river broadened now at Madam's Cove. There was a great roaring in
the main channel beyond, where the river was vexed by rocky falls;
inside the cove there was little water left except in the straight
channel that led to the landing-place and quaint heavy-timbered
boat-house. From the shore a grassy avenue went winding up to the house
above. Against the northwestern sky the old home of the Wallingfords
looked sad and lonely; its windows were like anxious eyes that followed
the river's course toward a dark sea where its master had gone
adventuring.
Mary stood on land, looking back the way she had come; her heart was
beating fast, but it was not from any effort of fighting against wind or
tide. She did not know why she began to remember with strange vividness
the solemn pageant of Judge Wallingford's funeral, which had followed
the water highway from Portsmouth, one summer evening, on the flood
tide. It was only six years before, when she was already the young and
anxious mistress of her brother's house, careful and troubled about many
things like Martha, in spite of her gentler name. She had looked out of
an upper window to see the black procession of boats with slow-moving
oars come curving and winding across the bay; the muffled black of
mourning trailed from the sides; there were soldiers of the judge's
regiment, sitting straight in their bright uniforms, for pallbearers,
and they sounded a solemn tap of drum as they came.
They drew nearer: the large coffin with its tasseled pall, the long
train of boats which followed filled with sorrowing friends,--the
President of the Province and many of the chief men,--had all passed
slowly by.
The tears rushed to Mary's eyes, that day, when she saw her brother's
serious young head among the elder gentlemen, and close beside him was
the fair tear-reddened face and blond uncovered hair of the fatherless
son. Roger Wallingford was but a boy then; his father had been the kind
friend and generous founder of all her brother's fortunes. She
remembered how she had thanked him from a grateful heart, and meant to
be unsparing in her service and unfailing in duty toward the good man's
widow and son. They had read prayers for him in the Queen's Chapel at
Portsmouth; they were but bringing him to his own plot of ground in
Somersworth, at eventide, and Mary Hamilton prayed for him out of a full
heart as his funeral went by. The color came in her young cheeks at the
remembrance. What had she dared to do, what responsibility had she not
taken upon her now? She was but an ignorant girl, and driven by the
whip of Fate. A strange enthusiasm, for which she could not in this
dark moment defend herself, had led her on. It was like the moment of
helpless agony that comes with a bad dream.
She turned again and faced the house; and the house, like a great
conscious creature on the hillside, seemed to wait for her quietly and
with patience. She was standing on Wallingford's ground, and bent upon a
most difficult errand. There was neither any wish for escape, in her
heart, nor any thought of it, and yet for one moment she trembled as if
the wind shook her as it shook the naked trees. Then she went her way,
young and strong-footed, up the long slope. It was one of the strange
symbolic correspondences of life that her path led steadily up the hill.
The great door of the house opened wide before her, as if the whole
future must have room to enter; old Rodney, the chief house servant,
stood within, as if he had been watching for succor. In the spacious
hall the portraits looked proud and serene, as if they were still
capable of all hospitalities save that of speech.
"Will you say that Miss Hamilton waits upon Madam Wallingford?" said
Mary; and the white-headed old man bowed with much ceremony, and went up
the broad stairway, still nodding, and pausing once, with his hand on
the high banister, to look back at so spirited and beautiful a guest. A
faithful heart ached within him to see her look so young, so
fresh-blooming, so untouched by sorrow, and to think of his stricken
mistress. Yet she had come into the chilly house like a brave, warm
reassurance, and all Rodney's resentment was swift to fade. The quick
instincts of his race were confronted by something that had power to
master them; he comprehended the truth because it was a simple truth and
his was a simple heart.
He disappeared at the turn of the staircase into the upper hall, and
Mary took a few impatient steps to and fro. On the great moose antlers
was flung some of the young master's riding gear; there was his rack of
whips below, and a pair of leather gloves with his own firm grasp still
showing in the rounded fingers. There were his rods and guns; even his
old dog leash and the silver whistle. She knew them all as well as he,
with their significance of past activities and the joys of life and
combat. They made their owner seem so close at hand, and the pleasures
of his youth all snatched away. Oh, what a sharp longing for the old
lively companionship was in her heart! It was like knowing that poor
Roger was dead instead of gone away to sea. He would come no more in
the winter evenings to tell his hunter's tales of what had happened at
the lakes, or to plan a snowshoe journey up the country. Mary stamped
her foot impatiently; was she going to fall into helpless weakness now,
when she had most need to be quiet and to keep her steadiness? Old
Rodney was stepping carefully down the stairs again; she wore a paler
look than when they had parted. Somehow, she felt like a stranger in
the familiar house.
Once Rodney would have been a mere reflection of his mistress's ready
welcome, but now he came close to Miss Hamilton's side and spoke in an
anxious whisper.
"You 'll be monst'ous gentle to her dis day, young mistis?" he asked
pleadingly. "Oh yis, mistis; her heart's done broke!"
Then he shuffled away to the dining-room to move the tankards on the
great sideboard. One could feel everything, but an old black man, born
in the jungle and stolen by a slaver's crew, knew when he had said
enough.
*XI*
*THAT TIME OF YEAR*
"Come, Sorrow! put thy sweet arms round my neck,
For none are left to do this, only thou."
The low afternoon sun slanted its rays into the stately chamber, and
brightened the dull East Indian red of some old pictured cottons that
made the tasseled hangings. There were glowing coals in the deep
fireplace, and Madam Wallingford sat at the left, in one of those great
easy-chairs that seem to offer refuge to both illness and sorrow. She
had turned away so that she could not see the river, and even the
wistful sunshine was all behind her. There was a slender light-stand
with some white knitting-work at her side, but her hands were lying idle
in her lap. She had never been called beautiful; she had no great
learning, though on a shelf near by she had gathered a little treasury
of good books. She had manner rather than manners; she was plainly
enough that unmistakable and easily recognized person, a great lady.
They are but few in every generation, but the simplicity and royalty of
their lovely succession have never disappeared from an admiring world.
"Come in, Mary," said Madam Wallingford, with a wan look of gentleness
and patience. "'Here I and Sorrow sit!'"
She motioned toward a chair which her attendant, an ancient
countrywoman, was placing near. Mary crossed the room quickly, and took
her appointed place; then she clasped her hands tight together, and her
head drooped. At that moment patriotism and all its high resolves may
have seemed too high; she forgot everything except that she was in the
presence of a lonely woman, sad and old and bereft. She saw the woeful
change that grief had made in this Tory mother of a Patriot son. She
could but sit in silence with maidenly self-effacement, and a wistful
affectionateness that was like the timidest caress,--this young creature
of high spirit, who had so lately thrown down her bold challenge of a
man's loyalty. She sat there before the fire, afraid of nothing but her
own insistent tears; she could not conquer a sudden dumbness that had
forgotten speech. She could not bear to look again at the piteous
beloved face of Madam Wallingford. The march of events had withered the
elder woman and trampled her underfoot, like a flower in the road that
every wheel went over; she had grown old in two short days, while the
girl who sat before her had only changed into brighter bloom.
"You may leave us now, Susan," said Madam Wallingford; and with many an
anxious glance the old serving woman went away.
Still there fell silence between the two. The wind was droning its
perpetual complaining note in the chimney; a belated song sparrow lifted
its happy little tune outside the southern windows, and they both
listened to the very end. Then their eyes turned to each other's faces;
the bird had spoken first in the wintry air. Then Mary Hamilton, with a
quick cry, took a hurried step, and fell upon her knees at the mother's
side, and took her in her arms, hiding her own face from sight.
"What can I say? Oh, what can I say?" she cried again. "It will break
my heart if you love me no more!"
The elder woman shrank for a moment; there was a quick flash in her
eyes; then she drew Mary still nearer and held her fast. The comfort of
a warm young life so close to her shivering loneliness, the sense of her
own weakness and that Mary was the stronger, kept her from breaking now
into the stern speech of which her heart was full. She said nothing for
a long time but sat waiting; and now and then she laid her hand on the
girl's soft hair, until Mary's fit of weeping had passed.
"Bring the little footstool here and sit by me; we must talk of many
things together," she gave command at last; and Mary, doing the errand
like a child, lingered by the window, and then returned with calmness to
her old friend's side. The childish sense of distance between them had
strangely returned, and yet she was conscious that she must take a new
charge upon herself, and keep nearer than ever to this sad heart.
"I did not know his plans until that very night," she said to Madam
Wallingford, looking bravely and sweetly now into the mother's face. "I
could not understand at first why there was such excitement in the very
air. Then I found out that the mob was ready to come and ruin you, and
to drag him out to answer them, as they did the Loyalists in Boston. And
there were many strangers on our side of the river. I heard a horrid
humming in the crowd that gathered when the captain came; they kept
together after he was in the house, and I feared that they were bent
upon a worse errand. I was thankful to know that Roger was in
Portsmouth, so nothing could be done that night. When he came to me
suddenly a little later,"--the girl's voice began to falter,--"I was
angry with him at first; I thought only of you. I see now that I was
cruel."
"My son has been taught to honor and to serve his King," said Madam
Wallingford coldly.
"He has put his country above his King, now," answered Mary Hamilton,
who had steadied herself and could go on: yet something hindered her
from saying more, and the wind kept up its steady plaint in the chimney,
but in this difficult moment the little bird was still.
"To us, our King and country have been but one. I own that the colonies
have suffered hardship, and not alone through willfulness; but to give
the reins of government to unfit men, to put high matters into the hands
of rioters and lawbreakers, can only bring ruin. I could not find it in
my heart to blame him, even after the hasty Declaration, when he would
not join with English troops to fight the colonies; but to join the
rebels to fight England should shame a house like this. Our government
is held a high profession among the wise of England; these foolish
people will bring us all upon the quicksands. If my son had sailed with
officers and gentlemen, such"--
"He has sailed with a hero," said Mary hotly, "and in company with good
men of our own neighborhood, in whom he can put his trust."
"Let us not quarrel," answered the lady more gently. She leaned her head
against the chair side, and looked strangely pale and old. "'T is true
I sent for you to accuse you, and now you are here I only long for
comfort. I am the mother of an only son; I am a widow,--little you know
what that can mean,--and my prop has gone. Yet I would have sent him
proudly to the wars, like a mother of ancient days, did I but think the
quarrel just. I could but bless him when he wakened me and knelt beside
my bed, and looked so noble, telling his eager story. I did not think
his own heart altogether fixed upon this change until he said his
country would have need of him. 'All your country, boy!' I begged him
then, 'not alone this willful portion of our heritage. Can you forget
that you are English born?'
"Then he rose up and stood upon his feet, and I saw that I had looked my
last upon his boyish days. 'No, dear mother,' he told me, 'I am
beginning to remember it!' and he stooped and kissed me, and stood
between the curtains looking down at me, till I myself could see his
face no more, I was so blind with tears. Then he kissed me yet again,
and went quick away, and I could hear him sobbing in the hall. I would
not have him break his word though my own heart should break instead,
and I rose then and put on my double-gown, and I called to Susan, who
wept aloud,--I even chid her at last for that, and her foolish
questions; and all through the dead of night we gathered the poor
child's hasty plenishings. Now I can only weep for things forgotten.
'T was still dark when he rode away; when the tide turned, the river
cried all along its banks, as it did that long night when his father lay
dead in the house. I prayed; I even lingered, hoping that he might be
too late, and the ship gone to sea. When he unpacks the chest, he will
not see the tears that fell there. I cannot think of our parting, it
hurts my heart so.... He bade me give his love to you; he said that God
could not be so cruel as to forbid his return.
"Mary Hamilton!" and suddenly, as she spoke, all the plaintive bewailing
of her voice, all the regretful memories, were left behind. "Oh, Mary
Hamilton, tell me why you have done this! All my children are in their
graves save this one youngest son. Since I was widowed I have gathered
age even beyond my years, and a heavy burden of care belongs to this
masterless house. I am a woman full of fears and weak in body. My own
forefathers and my husband's house alike have never refused their loyal
service to church and state. Who can stand in my son's place now? He
was early and late at his business; the poor boy's one ambition was to
make his father less missed by those who look to us for help. What is a
little soldiering, a trading vessel sunk or an English town affrighted,
to the service he could give at home? Had you only thought of this, had
you only listened to those who are wiser than we, had you remembered
that these troubles must be, in the end, put down, you could not have
been unjust. I never dreamed that the worst blow that could fall upon
me, except my dear son had died, could be struck me by your hand. Had
you no pity, that you urged my boy to go? Tell me why you were willing.
Tell me, I command you, why you have done this!"
Mary was standing, white as a flower now, before her dear accuser. The
quick scarlet flickered for one moment in her cheeks; her frightened
eyes never for one moment left Madam Wallingford's face.
"You must answer me!" the old mother cried again, shaken with passion
and despair.
"Because I loved you," said the girl then, and a flash of light was on
her face that matched the thrill in her voice. "God forgive me, I had
no other reason," she answered, as if she were a prisoner at the bar,
and her very life hung upon the words.
Madam Wallingford had spent all the life that was in her. Sleepless
nights had robbed her of her strength; she was withered by her grief
into something like the very looks of death. All the long nights, all
the long hours since she had lost her son, she had said these things
over to herself, that she might say them clear to those who ought to
listen. They had now been said, and her poor brain that had shot its
force of anger and misery to another heart was cold like the firelock
that has sped its ball. She sank back into the chair, faint with
weakness; she put out her hands as if she groped for help. "Oh, Mary,
Mary!" she entreated now; and again Mary, forgetting all, was ready with
fond heart to comfort her.
"It is of no use!" exclaimed Madam Wallingford, rousing herself at last,
and speaking more coldly than before. "I can only keep to one
thought,--that my son has gone. 'T is Love brings all our pain; this is
what it means to have a child; my joy and my sorrow are one, and the
light of my life casts its shadow! And I have always loved you; I have
wished many a time, in the old days, that you were my own little girl.
And now I am told that this adventurer has won your heart,--this man who
speaks much of Glory, lest Glory should forget to speak of him; that you
have even made my son a sacrifice to pride and ambition!"
Mary's cheeks flamed, her eyes grew dark and angry; she tried to speak,
but she looked in her accuser's face, and first a natural rage, and then
a sudden pity and the old love, held her dumb.
"Forgive me, then," said Madam Wallingford, looking at her, and into her
heart there crept unwonted shame.
"You do me wrong; you would wrong both your son and me!" and Mary had
sprung away next moment from her side. "I have told only the truth. I
was harsh to Roger when I had never known him false, and I almost hated
him because he seemed unsettled in his course. I even thought that the
rising against the Loyalists had frighted him, and I hated him when I
thought he was seeking shelter. He came that very night to tell me that
he was for the Patriots, and was doing all a brave man could, and
standing for Liberty with the rest of us. Then I knew better than he
how far the distrust of him had gone, and I took it upon myself to plead
with the captain of the Ranger. I knew too well that if, already
prejudiced by envious tales, he turned the commission down, the mob
would quick take the signal. 'T was for love of my friends I acted;
something drove me past myself, that night. If Roger should die, if
indeed I have robbed you of your son, this was the part I took. I would
not have done otherwise. He has taken a man's part for Liberty, and I
thank God. Now I have told you all."
They were facing each other again. Mary's voice was broken; she could
say no more. Then, with a quick change of look and with a splendid
gesture, Madam Wallingford rose from her place like a queen. Her face
shone with sudden knowledge of new happiness; she held out her arms,--no
queen and no accuser, but only a bereft woman, a loving heart that had
been beggared of all comfort. "Come, my darling," she whispered; "you
must forgive me everything, and love me the more for my poor weakness;
you will help me to have patience all these weary months."
The sun broke out again from behind a thick, low-hanging cloud, and
flooded all the dark chamber. Again the Indian stuffs looked warm and
bright; the fire sprang on the hearth as if upon an altar: it was as if
Heaven's own light had smiled into the room. Poor Mary's young pride was
sore hurt and distressed, but her old friend's wonted look of kindness
was strangely coming back; she showed all her familiar affectionateness
as if she had passed a great crisis. As for the lad whom they had wept
and quarreled over, and for whose sake they had come back again to each
other's hearts, he was far out upon the gray and tumbling sea; every
hour took him farther and farther from home.
And now Madam Wallingford must talk of him with Mary, and tell her
everything; how he had chosen but two books,--his Bible and an old
volume of French essays that Master Sullivan had given him when he went
to college. "'T was his copy of Shakespeare's plays," said she, "that
he wanted most; but in all our hurry, and with dull candlelight, we
could find it nowhere, and yesterday I saw it lying here on my chest of
drawers. 'T is not so many days since he read me a pretty piece of The
Tempest, as we sat together. I can hear his voice now as he read: 't
was like a lover, the way he said '_my noble mistress_!' and I could but
smile to hear him. He saw the great Garrick in his best characters,
when he was in London. Roger was ever a pretty reader when he was a boy.
'T is a gift the dullest child might learn from Master Sullivan."
The mother spoke fondly between smiles and tears; the old book lay open
on her knee, and something dropped to the floor,--a twig of faded
witch-hazel blossoms that her son had held in his fingers as he read,
and left between the leaves for a marker; a twig of witch-hazel, perhaps
from the same bough that Mary had broken as she came. It were easy to
count it for a message where some one else might think of but a pretty
accident. Mary stooped and picked the withered twig of blossoms from
the floor, and played with it, smiling as Madam Wallingford talked on,
and they sat together late into the autumn twilight. The poor lady was
like one who, by force of habit, takes up the life of every day again
when death has been in the house. The familiar presence of her young
neighbor had cured her for the moment of the pain of loneliness, but the
sharp words she had spoken in her distress would ache for many a day in
Mary's heart.
Mary could not understand that strange moment when she had been
forgiven. Yet the hardest soul might have compassion for a poor woman
so overwrought and defeated; she was still staggering from a heavy blow.
It was dark when they parted, and Madam Wallingford showed a strange
solicitude after her earlier reproaches, and forbade Mary when she would
have crossed the river alone. She took a new air of rightful command,
and Rodney must send two of the men with their own boat, and put by the
canoe until morning. The stars were bright and quick as diamonds
overhead, and it was light enough on the water, as they crossed. The
candlelight in the upper chamber on the hill looked dim, as if there
were illness in the house.
Indeed, Madam Wallingford was trembling with cold since her young guest
had gone. Susan wrapped her in an old cloak of soft fur, as she sat
beside the fire, and turned often to look at her anxiously, as she piled
the fagots and logs on the hearth until their flame towered high.
"Dear child, dear child," the poor lady said over and over in her heart.
"I think she does not know it yet, but I believe she loves my son."
That night old Susan hovered about her mistress, altering the droop of
the bed curtains and untwisting the balls of their fringe with a
businesslike air; then she put some heavy knots of wood on the fire for
the night, and built it solidly together, until the leaping lights and
shadows played fast about the room. She glanced as often as she dared
at the tired face on the pillow.