be worth preserving, word for word. But we are able to give only a
meager outline of it, very imperfect, and without regard to the order in
which the sentiments--like so many waves of liquid light--rippled upon
the hearts of his hearers.
XXX.
THE OLD CLERGYMAN'S FAREWELL.
The speaker was about to bid farewell, he said, to all those kind
friends. (Sensation.) He would leave them, and be soon forgotten. (Cries
of "No, no! never!" from old and young. Job smites his wooden leg, and
exclaims, with enthusiasm, "Not that, by a long thread!")
"Well," continues Father Brighthopes, with suffused features, "I thank
you. I hope you will remember me, as I shall remember you. God has been
very good to me, in giving me friends, all my life long."
"You deserve them, if anybody does," whispers Job, loud enough to be
heard by the entire audience.
He rubs his hands as if he meant it.
"Let me give you a little hint about getting and keeping friends," adds
the clergyman, smiling around upon the old people in the chairs, and the
young people on the grass or standing up. "I thank Brother Job for
suggesting the thought."
"Hear, hear!" says Mr. Royden, pulling Willie away from the speaker's
legs, and silencing Georgie, who is inclined to blow his grass
"squawker."
"My friends have generally been of the right kind," proceeds the old
man. "If you wish to have your friends of the right kind,"--glancing at
the younger portion of the audience,--"I'll tell you how to go to work.
"Be always ready to lend a helping hand to those who need assistance. Do
so with a hearty good will, not feeling as though you were throwing
something away; for, although you get no material return,--which should
be the last thing to expect,--you will find in the end that you have
been exercising your own capacities for happiness, which grow with their
use. Do good for the sake of good, and you will see that the bread thus
cast upon the waters comes right back to feed your own hungry souls.
"Be ready to sacrifice all externals to friendship, but maintain your
integrity. Give the glittering bubbles of the stream and the current
will still be yours, clear and strong as ever. What I mean is, abandon
circumstances and outside comforts for the sake of those you love, but
never desert a principle to follow any man or set of men. If you do, few
friends will be obtained, and they will not be firmly attached; while
many who would soon have come round to you will be lost forever. But
plant yourself on the rock of principle; and, however men may shun it at
first, it shall in the end prove a magnet to draw all true souls to
your standard. Royal hearts shall then be yours. They can rely on you,
and you on them; so there will be no falling off, when the wind shifts
to the northeast. Truth is the sun which holds friends in their orbits,
like revolving planets, by the power of its magnetism. If the sun
forsake its place in the heavens, and go chasing after the bright tail
of some gay comet, what will become of the planets? Let the sun be true
to itself, and even the comet comes around in time."
The old man looks at Chester with a smile which asks, "Is it not so?"
"Your philosophy is excellent for men of courage, like yourself," says
Chester. "But few can bear to be hated all their lives by the mass of
their fellow-men, as many have been, for the sake of the truth."
"Those men who do bear that cross are martyrs of the noblest sort,"
returns Father Brighthopes. "They are not only men of true courage, but
men of fortitude, which is a sort of enduring and perpetual courage. To
them the truth, and the few who see and love that truth,--if only a
handful of poor fishermen and three or four pious women,--will be more
precious than all the kingdoms of the earth. If the devil of ambition
whispers that by forsaking the former the latter may be gained, they can
resist the temptation; for they know the value of internal convictions
of right, and the worthlessness of external shows and shadows and
happiness.
"Great truths, when first revealed to mankind, need such martyrs.
Opposition assists in the development of principles, as alternate frosts
and heats in spring heave and loosen the soil. New truths, like sheaves
of grain, must be well threshed by the flail of persecution, and
winnowed by the wind of criticism, to separate the pure wheat from the
straw and chaff.
"But to none of us, I am confident, will be given the crown of
martyrdom. Mankind is too enlightened to make many martyrs now-a-days.
We gravitate to truth, and we crucify no more the prophet who reveals it
to our sight. This is an age in which principles may be demonstrated,
and will always be respected. Then let us embrace them, and have that
ballast to steady us in the stormy voyage of life."
"Men of principle, even to-day," Chester replies, "are accused of
fickleness and inconsistency, and all sorts of unworthy motives, by
those who do not understand them."
"Very well; I can bear to be misunderstood for a little while," says the
old man. "Those who are not established on the same ground of truth
imagine that I waver, while it is themselves who are continually
shifting. It took the earth a great while to learn that the sun and
stars did not revolve around it every twenty-four hours. What cared the
eternal sun? A ledge upreared in the midst of a swift river seems to be
swimming up-stream; but it is only the water moving. Look up at the moon
on a windy night when a storm is breaking away, and she appears to be
flying wildly across the floor of heaven. It is the clouds that hurry,
and the moon feels nothing of the optical delusion. Let us take example
of the stars, the sun, the moon and the planets, in order that the true
astronomers of the heart may know how to measure our distances and
compute our orbits."
"That's my idea, well expressed," says Job, who rubs his hands, feeling
that the right kind of friends have finally come around to him; "and
that's what I've always told my good woman."
The old man pats Job on the shoulder, and says some pleasant word, which
makes everybody laugh. He then proceeds with his speech. He goes from
the great principle of integrity to the exercise of the minor domestic
virtues. He dwells upon the happiness of the home in which love and
contentment dwell, contrasting it with the raw atmosphere which pervades
houses of the opposite stamp. How plainly his philosophy demonstrates
the necessity of an even temper and a sweet disposition!
"You can keep house without silver spoons, but not without these," he
says. "Charity and kindness are the soft music which regulates the march
of life, and cheers the hearts of the soldiers."
This allusion to his old profession reminds Job of his wooden leg, which
he pats affectionately whistling _Yankee Doodle_ very softly.
The old clergyman goes on. He has a good deal to say to the young folks
about the active life upon which they are just entering,--its perils and
temptations. He warns them against selfishness, and tells them how it
narrows and shrivels the soul. But his favorite theme is LOVE; and he
dwells much upon the beauty of its offspring, kindness, contentment,
cheerfulness. His language is so simple that even Willie can understand
all he says.
"Well," he remarks, in conclusion, "I am talking too long."
"Not a bit of it! I defy you!" cries Job Bowen.
"Go on! go on!" exclaim a dozen voices.
"I must take leave of you soon; and we can spend the little time that
remains to us more pleasantly than in speechifying, or listening to a
speech. It is doubtful if I ever meet you again. I am growing old," says
Father Brighthopes, with a serene smile. "I have but a little while to
stay here on earth. I am going home. Our Father has given me my work to
do, and it is almost done. Oh, would I could tell you how joyfully I
shall put off corruption for incorruption, and exchange mortality for
immortality!
"But I shall see you all again, even though we meet here no more. Let
us hope so. Let us so live that it shall be so. The Saviour's loving
arms are outstretched to receive us all in his embrace."
A pause; silence and tears. Mrs. Royden endeavors to conceal emotion by
arranging Hepsy's cape. Others resort to their handkerchiefs. The
speaker's voice is choked, and there are shining drops gliding down his
aged cheeks. To fill up the pause, he lifts Willie in his arms, as that
young gentleman is tying long grass around his feet, and murmuring
something about keeping him always; kisses him, and presses him to his
heart.
"What are you crying for?" asks the boy, breaking the silence.
With his little brown hand he touches a straw to one of the crystal
drops on the old man's face, and strings it off upon it like a bead.
"Thus may all our tears become bright gems!" says Father Brighthopes,
smiling tenderly upon the child. "But you cannot realize this, my
darling. You teach us a lesson quite unconsciously to your young heart.
You show us how hope is born of affliction, and how joy springs from the
dark soil of distress. My friends, let us look up. Never look down.
Remember what an eternity opens above us, beyond all the clouds of this
life. And may the good God bless you all!"
XXXI.
THE DEPARTURE.
It was evening when the company dispersed. Father Brighthopes took
affectionate leave of each individual, and had a kind and hopeful word
for every one. They seemed to be bidding farewell to some beloved old
patriarch, who had lived all his days amongst them.
The clergyman was left alone with his friends, the Roydens. The evening
was spent in sober, sweet communion. In the morning the family was up
early; for the old man was to be off at eight o'clock.
"Oh, we cannot express how much we owe to you, good Father!" exclaimed
Mrs. Royden, with tears of thankfulness in her eyes, on meeting him in
the parlor. "My husband seems a different man since you have been with
us. And you have taught me a lesson I shall endeavor to profit by. It is
hard to overcome fixed habits, and I know I shall often and often--as I
do now every day--yield to the dictates of my harsh temper; but I trust
I shall come off conqueror in the end!"
"We are all weak, of ourselves," said the old man, affectionately. "But
there is One who giveth strength."
Father Brighthopes found an opportunity to have a farewell talk with
poor Hepsy. She could not bear the thought of his going away. This was
now her only sorrow; for he had filled her soul with immortal hopes, and
taught her to endure patiently all the ills of life. But she feared lest
she might go back into the dark, when he was no longer near to reflect
the light from above upon her spirit. Had he not promised to write to
her, she would hardly have been consoled for his loss; as it was, it
seemed as if the sun was going into a dense, cold mist.
At length the breakfast was out of the way; the old man had offered up
his morning prayer in presence of the family, as, by request of the
parents, he had been accustomed to do, of late; his trunks were packed
and ready, and the time had come to say the last farewells.
James brought the horse to the door, at sight of which Willie just began
to comprehend that the old man was really going.
"I want to go too!" he cried, clinging to his knees.
Father Brighthopes stooped to kiss his plump brown cheek.
"Oh, let me go!" exclaimed Georgie, who had not thought of such an
arrangement before.
"Would you go and leave your father and mother, and Chester and James,
and all?" asked the clergyman.
"You show me how to do my sums better than they do; and you give me
story-books," replied Georgie, bashfully.
"And they do a thousand times more for you," said the old man, embracing
the boy. "They give you clothes, and food, and send you to school, and
do more things for you than anybody can think of."
"Oh, you will come again next summer, won't you, Father?" cried Lizzie,
kissing him impulsively, when his head was down.
"I am too old and feeble to make any promise for another year," replied
Father Brighthopes, smiling tenderly. "But I shall come and see you all
again, if Providence grant me that indulgence. Be this as it may, I
shall always remember you and love you."
How gently then he kissed the affectionate girl! He turned and gave his
hand to Sarah, whose eyes filled with tears as she received his
blessing.
Mr. Royden took the old man's arm, and led him to the wagon.
"But where is Samuel? I must not neglect him," said Father Brighthopes.
At that moment a groaning was heard behind the shed, under the tree
where the grindstone stood.
"Is that Sam?" asked Mr. Royden.
"Yes, sir," replied James. "Something is the matter with him; I don't
know what it is. He was taken sick when we were harnessing."
"What is the matter, my son?" asked the old man, cheerily, looking over
the gate.
Sam lay upon the turf, with his head on his arm, for a pillow.
"Nothing," he muttered, in a ghastly tone, without looking up.
"Come, I am going away. I want to bid you good-bye."
Sam groaned again; but endeavoring to conquer his malady, he sat up, and
raised his swimming eyes. Mr. Royden took him by the shoulder, and
helped him to his feet.
"What is the matter?" he demanded.
"Nothing, sir," said Sam. "I'm a little sick, that's all. I shall have
to set down again."
He sank upon the turf, and groaned, with his face in the grass.
Father Brighthopes was expressing a great deal of sympathy for him, when
Chester came and explained the mystery.
"He has been chewing tobacco," said he, with a cruel laugh. "I told him
it would make him sick."
"You foolish fellow!" exclaimed Mr. Royden; "what did you do that for?"
"I only jest wanted to learn how," moaned Sam.
"Learn how!"
"'Cos all the men chew," added the boy, sitting up again, and burying
his face in his hands, as the deathly feeling came over him once more.
"Well, well," said the old man, in an encouraging tone, "let this
experience be a lesson to you. Let alone the weed. You can be a man
without it, if you try. Good-by, good-by, my son!"
He got into the wagon, leaving the unhappy lad still moaning and
writhing with anguish on the green-sward.
Mark Wheeler arrived at the gate, having come to take leave of Father
Brighthopes, just as Chester and his father were driving away with their
aged friend.
The jockey rode the one-eyed colt, which he still retained in his
possession,--a perpetual remembrancer of a memorable day in his rugged
and uneven life.
He dismounted, and shook hands with the old man. Mark was much affected
by his kind wishes and gentle admonitions; but the presence of Mr.
Royden and Chester embarrassed him, and he could not express his
feelings.
"Come," said Mr. Royden, observing the state of affairs, "I suppose we
have not much time to lose."
"I will ride along with you," replied Mark, throwing himself upon the
back of the one-eyed colt.
Mrs. Royden, Hepsy and the children, watched the little party as they
rode away, Chester driving, while his father sat with the gray-haired
clergyman on the seat behind him, and Mark trotted his colt along on the
road-side, at their right hand; and they who were left at home felt
strange emotions of loneliness steal over their hearts, at the thought
that the venerable and beloved form then vanishing from sight might
never more repose beneath that roof.
There was no quarreling nor loud words among the children, that morning,
as they set out for school; but their faces were expressive of unusual
soberness, and their young hearts quite sad; until the bright birds
singing by the way-side, the breezes playing in their hair, and the
sunshine flooding all the earth, dispelled their gloom, and led them to
forget that the gentle old man they loved was riding on his journey, to
his field of labor far away.
XXXII.
REUNION.
A little more than two years had passed away. It was in "peach-time."
There was a merry group of young people in Mr. Royden's orchard, one
mild September afternoon.
There was Chester, proud, happy, overflowing with wit. He was just
married, and had come home, to pass a few days, with his fair bride.
She was a perfect doll; beautiful to look upon, with her soft eyes, fair
cheeks, ringlets and symmetrical form; but there was not much character
in her face. Her love for Chester was of the romantic kind. Although
they had been a week married, she could not relish a peach unless he
gave it her with a smile, having taken out the stone and tasted it
himself first.
Sarah was there, too,--now Mrs. Kerchey. Let not the reader be
surprised. Having broken that gentleman's arm, she could not make up her
mind to break his heart also, when he came to woo. He had qualities
which she was bound to respect; and at length she saw that, casting all
prejudice and false pride aside, she could bestow upon him a large
portion of love. Yet she never would have married him, had it not been
for her mother's persuasion.
Parents like to see their children well situated in life. Mrs. Royden
could not rest until she heard Sarah addressed as Mrs. Kerchey. This
amiable young couple had been married eighteen months; they were very
comfortable, and quite happy; Mr. Kerchey had greatly improved in
personal appearance; and the sweet little baby, that Lizzie seemed to
carry forever in her arms, and devour with kisses, was their property.
Lizzie was a "great girl." But she was very ladylike in her manners. She
gave promise of becoming a noble woman. Already she was beginning to
have beaux, but she was sensible enough not to care much for them. She
was an insatiable reader, and a superior scholar.
James, now a blushing, amiable young man, with a little down on his
chin, had quite fallen in love with his new sister. How happy, he
thought, Chester must be with his heiress, whom he had won in spite of
the cruel professor!
Georgie was now a stout lad, big enough to climb trees and shake off the
peaches, and polite enough to pick the handsomest ones for Mrs. Chester;
and Willie was what his father called him, "quite a little man." He
felt himself quite a big one, and tyrannized over the turkeys and
chickens accordingly. He had a little sister, about three years old,--a
sweet child to kiss, except that, on the afternoon we are describing,
her face was stained from ear to ear, and from nose to chin, with
peach-juice.
We must not forget Hepsy. She was there, sitting on the grass, and
knitting a purse for Mrs. Chester. O, how her poor heart throbbed when
she gazed upon that pretty face! How her eyes had rained tears of late,
when they saw only the gloom of her own chamber! But she had conquered
that wild passion which once devoured her heart, and banished
selfishness from her breast. She loved the fair bride very tenderly, and
felt that to see her and Chester happy would console her for all she had
endured. Hepsy's health was good, for her, although she was never
strong, and often the disease of her spine caused her hours of secret
pain.
Chester was the life of the company,--brimful of good spirits and fun.
Every word he spoke was treasured in Hepsy's heart. With a somewhat
different feeling, yet with no less admiration, his fair Sophronia
caught at the merest drops of nonsense that dripped from his lips,
thinking them pearls. She was not very witty herself, and she naturally
looked upon Chester as the most brilliant and talented man then existing
in the known world.
"There's Deacon Dustan's carriage!" suddenly cried Georgie, from the top
of the peach-tree, looking towards the road.
The boy had been lately reading stories of the whale-fishery, and he
fancied himself a man at the masthead, on the lookout for blowers.
"We must go over and see the deacon's people to-morrow, Phronie," said
Chester.
"O, yes!" exclaimed Phronie, clapping her little hands with childish
glee, "anywhere you please."
"The carriage has stopped," observed Lizzie, listening.
Willie ran off towards the fence to see. His little sister, following
him, fell headlong into the grass, and burst a great juicy peach on her
bosom, at which she began to cry.
"O, never mind, Jenny!" cried Sarah, picking her up, and using her
handkerchief to remove the effects of the disaster from the child's
clear skin. "You look as though a slight application of water would do
your face no harm, sis. What a monster you are, in peach time!"
At that moment a tall, awkward youth, with a good-natured grin on his
brown features, came through the gate, at the corner of the shed, and
shouted,
"Hillo!"
What a voice! It was rough as the bark of a hickory-tree.
"You can't guess who is come," said Sam,--for it was he,--with a broader
grin than before.
"Anybody to see me?" asked Chester.
"Wal, you as much as anybody," replied Sam, throwing his head aside to
spit.
"Who is it?" Sarah inquired.
"Guess!"
"How provoking you are, Sam Cone!" exclaimed Lizzie. "Why can't you
tell? Georgie said it was Deacon Dustan's carriage that stopped."
"So 'twas; I opened the gate for the deacon to drive through; but
somebody came with him--you can't guess who."
Sam spit again, and wiped his mouth with his sleeve.
"O!" said Sophronia, with a look of disgust, turning away her face; "he
chews tobacco!"
"What of it?" rejoined Sam, who overheard her.
And he rolled the weed in his cheek, with the air of one proud of the
accomplishment.
"Do spit out the filthy stuff!" exclaimed Chester.
"It an't no worse than smoking," retorted Sam.
This was a home thrust. Chester, during his last year at school, had
become addicted to cigars, which his silly little wife thought
delightful in his lips.
"O, there's no comparison!" she cried, indignantly.
Sam was not convinced; but he could not be indifferent to the opinion of
so pretty a creature; so, with a sheepish look, he flung the quid on the
ground behind him.
"Well, if you can't guess who has come," said he, "I'll tell you. It's
the old minister,--Father Brighthopes."
"Father Brighthopes!" echoed the children, in chorus.
"Yes," said Sam; "Deacon Dustan was over to town when he came, and
brought him straight here."
There was a general rush for the house. Lizzie--for the first time
voluntarily--abandoned the baby to Mr. Kerchey's arms, and ran to greet
her old friend. Georgie, who had not forgotten the clergyman, came
slipping down the tree, regardless of damage done his clothes.
"What else could have happened, to give us a more delightful surprise?"
cried Chester. "Come, Phronie. Now you will see, and judge for yourself,
the glorious old man you have heard me tell so much about."
Hepsy was not the last to start. But she stopped to take Jenny with her.
"Come, dear," said she, "you must have your face washed now. What are
you doing?"
The child, seated upon the turf, was absorbed in the anatomy of a
grasshopper. It was one of the oldest of its race,--a large,
respectable fellow, over an inch long. In pursuing her investigations,
however, Jenny had taken its head off; and it had thus fallen a victim
to infant science.
"Why, Jenny!" exclaimed Hepsy, "you have killed the poor thing!"
"Are you sorry?" lisped the little girl, with beautiful simplicity. "You
needn't be," she added, cheerily. "There's enough more of 'em."
It took Hepsy a good while to explain exactly why children should not
indulge a passion for decapitating insects; and Jenny was sadly troubled
when allusion was made to the gentle removal of her own fair head from
her shoulders, in order that she might judge how grasshoppers felt under
the circumstances.
XXXIII.
CONCLUSION.
It was a joyful meeting, and that day was one of the happiest in the old
clergyman's life. He took the children to his bosom with all the warm
affection of his sunny nature, with tears of thankfulness in his eyes.
He had lasted wonderfully. You could hardly discover that he had grown
old at all. There was the same serene face,--aged, indeed, but with a
spirit eternally young forever shining through.
He had come to pass only a few days with his friends. And those
days--would we had space to describe them!--flew swiftly by. Once more
the time came for his departure.
But he remained long enough to remark, and to rejoice over, the change
in Mrs. Royden's household since the day when he first came there to
spend his brief vacation. There was sunshine beneath the roof. There was
music in the air of the house. There was beauty all around.