"I can't help it."
"You _can_ help it, my son!--you _can_!"
And at this the Doctor, in an agony of spirit, (the boy recalled it
perfectly,) had risen and paced back and forth in his study; then, after
a little, threw himself upon his knees near to Reuben, and prayed
silently, with his hands clasped.
The boy had melted somewhat at this, and still more when the father rose
with traces of a tear in his eye.
"Are you not softened now, my son?"
"I always am when I see you going on that way," said Reuben.
"My poor son!"--and he had drawn the boy to him, gazing into the face
from which the blue eyes of the lost Rachel looked calmly out, moved
beyond himself.
If, indeed, the lost Rachel had been really there between the two, to
interpret the heart of the son to the father!
Is Reuben whimpering as the memory of this last tender episode comes to
his memory? What would Phil or the rest of the Ashfield fellows say to a
runaway boy sniffling under the edge of the wood? Not he, by George! And
he munches at his roll of gingerbread with a new zest,--confirming his
vagabond purpose, that just now wavered, with a thought of those tedious
Saturday nights and the "reasons annexed," and Aunt Eliza's sharp elbow
nudging him upon the hard pew-benches, as she gives a muffled, warning
whisper,--"Attend to the sermon, Reuben!"
And so, with glorious visions of Sindbad the Sailor in his mind, and a
cheery remembrance of Crusoe when he cut himself adrift from home and
family for his wonderful adventures, Reuben pushes gallantly on through
the woods in the direction of the river. He knows that somewhere, up or
down, a sloop will be found bound for New York. From the heights around
Ashfield, he has seen, time and again, their white sails specking some
distant field of blue. Once, too, upon a drive with the Doctor, he had
seen these marvellous vessels from a nearer point, and had looked
wistfully upon their white decks and green companion-ways.
Overhead the jays cried from the bare chestnut-trees; from time to time
the whirr of a brood of partridges startled him; the red squirrels
chattered; still he pushed on, catching a chance dinner at a wayside
farm-house, and by night had come within plain sight of the water. The
sloop Princess lay at the Glastenbury dock close by, laden with wood and
potatoes, and bound for New York the next morning. The kind-hearted
skipper, who was also the owner of the vessel, took a sudden fancy to
the sore-footed, blue-eyed boy who came aboard to bargain for a passage
to the city. The truant was not, indeed, overstocked with ready money,
but was willing to pawn what valuables he had about him, and hinted at a
rich aunt in the city who would make good what moneys were lacking. The
skipper has a shrewd suspicion how the matter stands, and, with a kindly
sympathy for the lad, consents to give him passage on condition he drops
a line into the mail to tell his friends which way he has gone; and
taking a dingy sheet of paper from the locker under his berth, he seats
Reuben with pen in hand at the cabin-table, whereupon the boy writes,--
"DEAR FATHER,--I have come away from school. I don't know as
you will like it much. I walked all the way from Bolton, and
my feet are very sore; I don't think I could walk home.
Captain Saul says he will take me by the way of New York. I
can go and see Aunt Mabel. I will tell her you are all well.
"How is Adele and Phil and Rose and, the others? I hope you
won't be very angry. I don't think Mr. Brummem's is much of
a school. I don't learn so much there as I learned at home.
I don't think the boys there are good companions. I think
they are wicked boys sometimes. Mr. Brummem says they are.
And he whips awful hard.
"Yr affect, son,
"REUBEN."
And the skipper, taking the letter ashore to post it, adds upon the
margin,--
"I opened the within to see who the boy was; and this is to
say, I shall take him aboard, and shall be off Chatham Red
Quarries to-morrow night and next day morning, and, if you
signal from the dock, can send him ashore. Or, if this don't
come in time, my berth is Peck Slip, in York.
"JOHN SAUL, Sloop Princess."
Next day they go drifting down the river. A quiet, smoky October day;
the distant hills all softened in the haze; the near shores green with
the fresh-springing aftermath. Reuben lounged upon the sunny side of the
mainsail, thinking, with respectful pity, of the poor fagged fellows in
roundabouts who were seated at that hour before the red desks in Parson
Brummem's school-room. At length he was enjoying a taste of that outside
life of which he had known only from travellers' books, or from such
lucky ones as the accomplished Tavern Boody. Henceforth he, too, would
have his stories to tell. The very rustle of the water around the prow
of the good sloop Princess was full, of Sindbad echoes. Was it not
remotely possible that he, too, like Captain Saul sitting there on the
taffrail smoking his pipe, should have his vessel at command some day,
and sail away wherever Fortune, with her iris-hued streamers, might
beckon? Not much of sentiment in the boy as yet, beyond the taste of
freedom, or--what is equivalent to it in the half-taught--vagabondage.
As for Rose, what does she know of sloops and the world? And Adele?
Well, from this time forth at least, the boy can match her nautical
experience with an experience of his own. Possibly his humiliation and
conscious ignorance at the French girl's story of the sea were, as much
as anything, at the bottom of this wild vagary of his. For ten hours the
Captain lies off Chatham Quarries, taking on additional freight there;
but there is no signal from the passenger-dock. The next morning the
hawsers were cast off, and the mainsail run up again, while the Princess
surged away into the middle of the current.
"Now, my boy, we're in for a sail!" said Captain Saul.
"I'm glad," said Reuben, who would have been doubly glad, if he had
known of his narrow escape at the last landing.
"I suppose you haven't much of a kit?" said the Captain.
The truth is, that a pocket-comb was the extent of Reuben's equipment
for the voyage. It came out on further talk with the Captain; and the
boy was mortified to make such small show of appliances.
"Well, well," says the Captain, "we must keep this toggery for the city,
you know"; and he finds a blue woollen shirt,--for the boy is of good
height for his years,--and a foremast hand shortens in a pair of old
duck trousers for him, in which Reuben paces up and down the deck, with
a mortal dread at first lest the boom may make a dash against the wind
and knock him overboard, in quite sailorly fashion. The beef is hard
indeed; but a page or two out of "Dampier's Voyages," of which an old
copy is in the cabin, makes it seem all right. The shores, too, are
changing from hour to hour; a brig drifts within hail of them, which
Reuben watches, half envying the fortunate fellows in red shirts and
tasselled caps aboard, who are bound to Cuba, and in a fortnight's time
can pluck oranges off the trees there, to say nothing of pineapples and
sugar-cane.
Over the Saybrook Bar there is a plunging of the vessel which horrifies
him somewhat; but smooth weather follows, with long lines of hills
half-faded on the rim of the water, and the country sounds at last all
dead. A day or two of this, with only a mild autumnal breeze, and then a
sharp wind, with the foam flying over forecastle and wood-pile, between
the winding shores, toward Flushing Bay, brings sight of great white
houses with green turf coming down to the rocks, where the waves play
and break among the drifted sea-weed. Captain Saul is fast at his helm,
while the big boom creaks and crashes from side to side as he beats up
the narrowing channel, rounding Throg's Point, where the light-house and
old whitewashed fort stand shining in the sun,--skirting low rocky
islands, doubling other points, dashing at half-tide through the roar
and whirl of Hell Gate,--Reuben glowing with excitement, and mindful of
Kidd and of his buried treasure along these shores. Then came the
turreted Bridewell, and at last the spires, the forest of masts, with
all that prodigious, crushing, bewildering effect with which the first
sight of a great city weighs upon the thought of a country-taught boy.
"Now mind the rogues, Reuben," said Captain Saul, when they were fairly
alongside the dock; "and keep by your bunk for a day or two, boy. Don't
stray too far from the vessel,--Princess, Captain Saul, remember."
XXVI.
The Doctor is not a little shocked by the note which he receives from
Reuben, and which comes too late for the interception of the boy upon
the river. He writes to Mrs. Brindlock, begging the kind offices of her
husband in looking after the lad, until such time as he can come down
for his recovery. The next day, to complete his mortification, he
receives the epistle of Brother Brummem.
The good Doctor cannot rightly understand, in his simplicity, how such
apparent headlong tendency to sin should belong to this child of prayer.
At times he thinks he can trace back somewhat of the adventurous spirit
of the poor lad to the restless energy of his father, the Major; was it
not possible also--and the thought weighed upon him grievously--that he
inherited from him besides a waywardness in regard to spiritual matters,
and that "the sins of the fathers" were thus visited terribly upon the
children? The growing vagabondage of the boy distressed him the more by
reason of his own responsible connection with the little daughter of his
French friend. How should he, who could not guide in even courses the
child of his own loins, presume to conduct the little exile from the
heathen into paths of piety?
And yet, strange to say, the character of the blithe Adele,
notwithstanding the terrible nature of her early associations, seems to
fuse more readily into agreement with the moral atmosphere about her
than does that of the recreant boy. There may not be, indeed, perfect
accord; but there are at least no sharp and fatal antagonisms to
overcome. If the lithe spirit of the girl bends under the grave
teachings of the Doctor, it bends with a charming grace, and rises again
smilingly, when sober speech is done, like the floweret she is. And if
her mirth is sometimes irrepressible through the long hours of their
solemn Sundays, it breaks up like bubbles from the deep quiet bosom of a
river, cheating even the grave parson to a smile that seems scarcely
sinful.
"Oh, that sermon was so long,--so long to-day, New Papa! I am sure Dame
Tourtelot pinched the Deacon, or he would never, never have been awake
through it all."
Or, maybe, she steals a foot out of doors on a Sunday to the patch of
violets, gathering a little bunch, and appeals to the Doctor, who comes
with a great frown on his face,--
"New Papa, is it most wicked to carry flowers or fennel to church?
Godmother always gave me a flower on holydays."
And the Doctor is cheated of his rebuke; nay, he sometimes wonders, in
his self-accusing moments, if the Arch-Enemy himself has not lodged
under cover of that smiling face of hers, and is thus winning him to a
sinful gayety. There are times, too, when, after some playful badinage
of hers which has touched too nearly upon a grave theme, she interrupts
his solemn admonition with a sudden rush toward him, and a tap of those
little fingers upon his furrowed cheek:--
"Don't look so solemn, New Papa. Nobody will love you, if you look in
that way."
What if this, too, be some temptation of the Evil One, withdrawing him
from the grave thought of eternal things, diverting him from the solemn
aims of his mission?
There were snatches, too, of Latin hymns, taught her by the godmother,
and only half remembered,--hymns of glorious rhythm, which, as they
tripped from her halting tongue, brought a great burden of sacred
meanings, and were full of the tenderest associations of her childhood.
To these, too, the Doctor was half pained to find himself listening,
sometimes at nightfall of a Sunday, with an indulgent ear, and stoutly
querying with himself if Satan could fairly lurk in such holy words as
"Dulcis memoria Iesu."
Adele, as we have said, had accepted the duties of attendance upon the
somewhat long sermons of the Doctor and of weekly instructions in the
Catechism, with a willing spirit, and had gone through them
cheerfully,--not, perhaps, with the grave air of devotion which by
education and inheritance belonged to the sweet face of her companion,
Rose. Nay, she had sometimes rallied Rose upon the exaggerated
seriousness which fastened upon her face whenever the Bible tasks came
up. But Adele, with that strong leaning which exists in every womanly
nature toward religious faith of some kind, had grown into a respect for
even the weightiest of the Christian gravities around her; not that they
became the sources of a new trust, but, through a sympathy that a heart
like hers could not resist, they rallied an old childish one into fresh
action. The strange, serious worship of those about her was only a new
guise--so at least it seemed to her simplicity--in which to approach the
same good God whom the godmother with herself had praised with chants
that rang once under the dim arches of the old chapel, smoky with
incense and glowing with pictures of saints, at Marseilles. And if
sometimes, as the shrill treble of Miss Almira smote upon her ear, she
craved a better music, and remembered the fragrant cloud rising from the
silver censers as something more grateful than the smoke leaking from
the joints of the stove-pipe in Ashfield meeting-house, and would have
willingly given up Miss Eliza's stately praises of her recitation for
one good hug of the godmother,--she yet saw, or thought she saw, the
same serene trust that belonged to her in the eyes of good Mistress
Onthank, in the kind face of Mrs. Elderkin, and in the calm look of the
Doctor when he lifted his voice every night at the parsonage in prayer
for "all God's people."
Would it be strange, too, if in the heart of a girl taught as she had
been, who had never known a mother's tenderness, there should be some
hidden leaning toward those traditions of the Romish faith in which a
holy mother appeared as one whose favor was to be supplicated? The
worship of the Virgin was, indeed, too salient an object of attack among
the heresies which the New England teachers combated, not to inspire a
salutary caution in Adele and entire concealment of any respect she
might still feel for the Holy Mary. Nor was it so much a respect that
shaped itself tangibly among her religious beliefs as a secret craving
for that outpouring of maternal love denied her on earth,--a craving
which found a certain repose and tender alleviation in entertaining fond
regard for the sainted mother of Christ.
When, therefore, on one occasion, Miss Eliza had found among the toilet
treasures of Adele a little lithographic print of the Virgin, with the
Christ's head surrounded by a nimbus of glory, and in her chilling way
had sneered at it as a heathen vanity, the poor child had burst into
tears, and carried the treasure to her bosom to guard it from
sacrilegious touch.
The spinster, rendered watchful, perhaps, by this circumstance, had on
another day been still more shocked to find in a corner of the
escritoire of Adele a rosary, and with a very grave face had borne it
down for the condemnation of the Doctor.
"Adaly, my child, I trust you do not let this bawble bear any part in
your devotions?"
And the Doctor made a movement as if he would have thrown it out of the
window.
"No, New Papa!" said Adele, darting toward him, and snatching it from
his hand, with a fire in her eye he had never seen there before,--a
welling-up for a moment of the hot Provencal blood in her veins; "_de
grace! je vous en prie_!" (in ecstatic moments her tongue ran to her own
land and took up the echo of her first speech,)--then growing calm, as
she held it, and looked into the pitying, wondering eyes of the poor
Doctor, said only, "It was my mother's."
Of course the kind old gentleman never sought to reclaim such a
treasure, but in his evening prayer besought God fervently "to overrule
all things,--our joys, our sorrows, our vain affections, our delight in
the vanities of this world, our misplaced longings,--to overrule all to
His glory and the good of those that love Him."
The Doctor writes to his friend Maverick at about this date,--
"Your daughter is still in the enjoyment of excellent health, and is
progressing with praiseworthy zeal in her studies. I cannot too highly
commend her general deportment, by which she has secured the affection
and esteem of all in the parish who have formed an acquaintance with
her. In respect of her religious duties, she is cheerful and punctual in
the performance of them; and I find it hard to believe that they should
prove only a 'savor of death unto death.' She listens to my discourse,
on most occasions, with a commendable patience, and seems kindly
disposed toward my efforts. Still I could wish much to see in her a
little more burdensome sense of sin and of the enormity of her
transgressions. We hope that she may yet be brought to a realizing sense
of her true condition.
"She is fast becoming a tall and graceful girl, and it may soon be
advisable to warn her against the vanities that overtake those of her
age who are still engrossed with carnal things. This advice would come
with a good grace, perhaps, from the father.
"A little rosary found among her effects has been the occasion of some
anxieties to my sister and myself, lest she might still have a leaning
toward the mockeries of the Scarlet Woman of Babylon; and I was at first
disposed to remove it out of her way. But being advised that it is
cherished as a gift of her mother, I have thought it not well to take
from her the only memento of so near and, I trust, dear a relative.
"May God have you, my friend, in His holy keeping!"
XXVII.
Reuben, taking the advice of Captain Saul, with whom he would cheerfully
have gone to China, had the sloop been bound thither, came back to his
bunk on the first night after a wandering stroll through the lower part
of the city. It is quite possible that he would have done the same,
viewing the narrowness of his purse, upon the second night, had he not
encountered at noon a gentleman in close conversation with the Captain,
whom he immediately recognized--though he had seen him but once
before--as Mr. Brindlock. This person met him very kindly, and with a
hearty shake of the hand, "hoped he would do his Aunt Mabel the honor of
coming to stay with them."
There was an air of irony in this speech which Reuben was quick to
perceive; and the knowing look of Captain Saul at once informed him that
all the romance of his runaway voyage was at an end. Both Mr. and Mrs.
Brindlock received him at their home with the utmost kindness, and were
vastly entertained by his story of the dismal life upon Bolton Hill, the
pursuit of the parson with his white-faced nag, and the subsequent
cruise in the sloop Princess. Mrs. Brindlock, a good-natured,
self-indulgent woman, was greatly taken with the unaffected country
naturalness of the lad, and was agreeably surprised at his very
presentable appearance: for Reuben at this date--he may have been
thirteen or fourteen--was of good height for his years, with a profusion
of light, wavy hair, a thoughtful, blue eye, and a lurking humor about
the lip which told of a great faculty for mischief. There was such an
absence, moreover, in this city home, of that stiffness with which his
Aunt Eliza had such a marvellous capacity for investing everything about
her, that the lad found himself at once strangely at his ease. Was it,
perhaps, (the thought flashed upon him,) because it was a godless home?
The spinster aunt had sometimes expressed a fear of this sort, whenever
stories of the Brindlock wealth had reached them. Howbeit, he was on
most familiar footing with both master and mistress before two days had
gone by.
"Aunt Mabel," he had said, "I suppose you'll be writing to the old
gentleman, and do please take my part. I can't go back to that
abominable Brummem; if I do, I shall only run away again, and go
farther: do tell him so."
"But why couldn't you have stayed at home, pray? Did you quarrel with
the little French girl? eh, Reuben?"
The boy flushed.
"Not with Adele,--never!"
Brindlock, a shrewd, successful merchant, was, on his part, charmed with
the adventurous spirit of the boy, and with the Captain's report of the
way in which the truant had conducted negotiations for the trip. From
all which it came about, that Mrs. Brindlock, in writing to the Doctor
to inform him of Reuben's safe arrival, added an urgent request that the
boy might be allowed to pass the winter with them in New York; in which
event he could either attend school, (there being an excellent one in
her neighborhood,) or, if the Doctor preferred, Mr. Brindlock could give
him some light employment in the counting-room, and try his capacity for
business.
At first thought, this proposition appeared very shocking to the Doctor;
but, to his surprise, Miss Eliza was strongly disposed to entertain it.
Her ambitious views for the family were flattered by it; and she kindly
waived, in view of them, her objections to the godless life which she
feared her poor sister was leading.
The Doctor was not fully persuaded by her, and took occasion to consult,
as was his wont in practical affairs, his friend Squire Elderkin.
"I rather like the plan," said the Squire, after some
consideration,--"quite like it, Doctor,--quite like it.
"You see, Doctor,"--and he slipped a finger into a buttonhole of the
good parson's, (the only man in the parish who would have ventured upon
such familiarity,)--"I think we've been a little strict with Reuben,--a
little strict. He's a fine, frank, straight-for'ard lad, but
impulsive,--impulsive, Doctor. Your father, the Major, had a little of
it,--quicker blood than you or I, Doctor. We can't wind up every boy
like a clock; there's some that go with weights, and there's some that
go with springs. Then, too, I think, Doctor, there's a little of the old
Major's _fight_ in the boy. I think he has broken over a good many of
our rules very much because the rules were there, and provoked him to
try his strength.
"Now, Doctor, there's been a good deal of this kind of thing, and our
Aunt Eliza puts her foot down rather strongly, which won't be a bugbear
to the boy with Mrs. Brindlock; besides which, there's your old friend,
Rev. Dr. Mowry, at the Fulton-Street Church close by"----
"So he is, so he is," said the Doctor; "I had forgotten that."
"And then, to tell the truth, Doctor, between you and I," (and the
Squire was working himself into some earnestness,) "I don't believe that
all the wickedness in the world is cooped up in the cities. In my
opinion, the small towns have a pretty fair sprinkling,--a pretty fair
sprinkling, Doctor; and if it's contagious, as I've heard, I think I
know of some places in country parishes that might be called infectious.
And I tell you what it is, Doctor, the Devil" (and he twitched upon the
Doctor's coat as if he were in a political argument) "doesn't confine
himself to large towns. He goes into the rural districts, in my opinion,
about as regularly as the newspapers; and he holds his ground a
confounded sight longer."