AT WOODSIDE.
Who can describe the sweets of country life
But those blest men that do enjoy and taste them?
Plain husbandmen, though far below our pitch
Of fortune placed, enjoy a wealth above us:
They breathe a fresh and uncorrupted air,
And in sweet homes enjoy untroubled sleep.
Their state is fearless and secure, enriched
With several blessings such as greatest kings
Might in true justice envy, and themselves
Would count too happy if they truly knew them.
--_May._
Ishmael was settled in his new apartments on the first floor of a
comfortable house on Louisiana Avenue. The front room opening upon
the street, and having his name and profession engraved upon a
silver plate attached to the door, was his public office; the middle
room was his private office; and the back room, which opened upon a
pleasant porch leading into the garden, was his bed-chamber.
The house was kept by two sisters, maiden ladies of venerable age,
who took no other boarders or lodgers.
So, upon the whole, Ishmael's quarters were very comfortable.
The rapid increase of his business justified him in taking a clerk;
and then in a week or two, as he saw this clerk over-tasked, he took
a second; both young men who had not been very successful
barristers, but who were very good office lawyers.
And Ishmael's affairs went on "swimmingly."
Of course there were hours when he sadly missed the companionship of
the congenial family circle with whom he had been so long connected;
but Ishmael was not one to murmur over the ordinary troubles of
life. He rather made the best of his position and steadily looked on
the bright side.
Besides, he maintained a regular correspondence with his friends.
That correspondence was the only recreation and solace he allowed
himself.
Almost every day he wrote to Bee, and he received answers to every
one of his letters--answers full of affection, encouragement, and
cheerfulness.
And at least once a week he got letters from Judge Merlin, Mr.
Middleton, and Mr. Brudenell, all of whom continued to urge him to
pay them visits as soon as his business would permit. Only one more
letter he got from Reuben Gray; for letter writing was to poor
Reuben a most difficult and dreaded task; and this one was merely to
say that they should expect Ishmael down soon.
From Judge Merlin's letters it appeared that Lord and Lady Vincent
had extended their tour into Canada East, and were now in the
neighborhood of the "Thousand Isles," but that they expected to
visit the judge at Tanglewood some time during the autumn; after
which they intended to sail for Europe.
Ishmael continued to push his business for six or seven weeks, so
that it was near the first of September before he found leisure to
take a holiday and pay his promised visits.
Two weeks was the utmost length of time he could allow himself. And
there were four places that seemed to have equal claims upon his
society. Where should he go first? Truly Ishmael was embarrassed
with the riches of his friendships.
At Woodside were Hannah and Reuben, who had cared for him in his
orphaned infancy, and who really seemed to have the first right to
him.
And at Tanglewood Judge Merlin was alone, moping for the want of his
lost daughter and needing the consolation of a visit from Ishmael.
At the Beacon was his betrothed bride, who was also anxious to see
him.
And finally, at Brudenell Hall was Herman Brudenell; and Herman
Brudenell was--his father!
After a little reflection Ishmael's right-mindedness decided in
favor of Woodside. Hannah had stood in his mother's place towards
him, and to Hannah he would go first.
So, to get there by the shortest route, Ishmael took passage in the
little steamer "Errand Boy," that left Georgetown every week for the
mouth of the river, stopping at all the intervening landing-places.
Ishmael started on Friday morning and on Saturday afternoon was set
ashore at Shelton, whence a pleasant walk of three miles through the
forest that bordered the river brought him to Woodside.
Clean and cheerful was the cottage, gleaming whitely forth here and
there from its shadowy green foliage and clustering red roses. The
cottage and the fence had been repainted, and the gravel walk that
led from the wicket-gate to the front door had been trimmed and
rolled. And very dainty looked the white, fringed curtains and the
green paper blinds at the front windows.
Evidently everything had been brightened up and put into holiday
attire to welcome Ishmael.
While his hand was on the latch of the gate he was perceived from
within, and the front door flew open and all the family rushed out
to receive him--Reuben and Hannah, and the two children and Sally
and the dog--the latter was as noisy and sincere in his welcome as
any of the human friends, barking round and round the group to
express his sympathy and joy and congratulations.
"I telled Hannah how you'd come to us fust; I did! Didn't I, Hannah,
my dear?" said Reuben triumphantly, as he shook both Ishmael's hands
with an energy worthy of a blacksmith.
"Well, I knew he would too! It didn't need a prophet nor one to rise
from the dead to tell us that Ishmael would be true to his old
friends," said Hannah, pushing Reuben away and embracing Ishmael
with a--
"How do you do, my boy? You look better than I expected to see you
after your hard year's work."
"Oh, I am all right, thank you, Aunt Hannah. Coming to see you has
set me up!" laughed Ishmael, cordially returning her embrace.
"You, Sally! what are you doing there? grinning like a monkey? Go
directly and make the kettle boil, and set the table. And tell that
Jim, that's always loafing around you, to make himself useful as
well as ornamental, and open them oysters that were brought from
Cove Banks to-day. Why don't you go? what are you waiting for?"
"Please 'm, I hav'n't shook hands long o' Marse Ishmael yet," said
Sally, showing all her fine ivories.
Ishmael stepped forward and held out his hand, saying, as he kindly
shook the girl's fat paw:
"How do you do, Sally? You grow better looking every day! And I have
got a pretty coral breastpin in my trunk for you, to make up for
that one the shanghai swallowed."
"Oh, Marse Ishmael, you needn't have taken no trouble, not on my
account, sir, I am sure; dough I'm thousand times obleege to you,
and shall be proud o' de breas'pin, 'cause I does love breas'pins,
'specially coral," said Sally, courtesying and smiling all over her
face.
"Well, well," said Hannah impatiently, "now be off with you
directly, and show your thankfulness by getting supper for your
Marse Ishmael as quick as ever you can. Never mind the table--I'll
set that."
Sally dropped another courtesy and vanished.
"Where did you say your trunk was, Ishmael?" inquired Gray, as they
walked into the house.
"He never said it was anywhere; he only said he had a coral
breastpin in it for Sally," put in the literal Hannah.
"My trunk is at the Steamboat Hotel in Shelton, Uncle Reuben. I
could not at once find a cart to bring it over, for I was too
anxious to see you all to spend time looking for one. So I left it
with the landlord, with orders to forward it on Monday."
"Oh, sho! And what are you to do in the meantime? And Sally'll go
crazy for a sight of her breastpin! So I'll just go out and make Sam
put the horse to the light wagon, and go right after it; he'll jest
have time to go and get it and come back afore it's dark," said
Reuben; and without waiting to hear any of Ishmael's remonstrances,
he went out immediately to give his orders to Sam.
Hannah followed Ishmael up to his own old room in the garret, to see
that he had fresh water, fine soap, clean towels, and all that was
requisite for his comfort.
And then leaving him to refresh himself with a wash, she returned
downstairs to set the table for tea.
By the time she had laid her best damask table-cloth, and set out
her best japan waiter and china tea-set, and put her nicest
preserves in cut glass saucers, and set the iced plumcake in the
middle of the table, Ishmael, looking fresh from his renewed toilet,
came down into the parlor.
She immediately drew forward the easiest arm-chair for his
accommodation.
He sat down in it and called the two children and the dog, who all
gathered around him for their share of his caresses.
And at the same moment Reuben, having dispatched Sam on his errand
to Shelton, came in and sat down, with his big hands on his knees,
and his head bent forward, contemplating the group around Ishmael
with immense satisfaction.
Hannah was going in and out between the parlor and the pantry
bringing cream, butter, butter-milk, and so forth.
Ishmael lifted John upon his knees, and while smoothing back the
flaxen curls from the child's well-shaped forehead, said:
"This little fellow has got a great deal in this head of his! What
do you intend to make of him, Uncle Reuben?"
"Law, Ishmael, how can I tell!" grinned Reuben.
"You should give him an education and fit him for one of the learned
professions; or, no; I will do that, if Heaven spares us both!" said
Ishmael benevolently; then smiling down upon the child, he said:
"What would you like to be when you grow up, Johnny?"
"I don't know," answered inexperience.
"Would you like to be a lawyer?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"'Cause I wouldn't."
"Satisfactory! Would you like to be a doctor?"
"'No."
"Why?"
"'Cause I wouldn't."
"'As before.' Would you like to be a parson?"
"No."
"Why?"
"'Cause I wouldn't."
"Sharp little fellow, isn't he, Ishmael? Got his answer always
ready!" said the father, rubbing his knees in delight.
Ishmael smiled at Reuben Gray and then turned to the child and said:
"What would you like to be, Johnny?"
"Well, I'd like to be a cart-driver like Sam, and drive the ox
team!"
"Aspiring young gentleman!" said Ishmael, smiling.
"There now," said Hannah, who had heard the latter part of this
conversation, "that's what I tell Reuben. He needn't think he is
going to make ladies and gentlemen out of our children. They are
just good honest workman's children, and will always be so; for
'what's bred in the bone will never come out in the flesh'; and
'trot mammy, trot daddy, the colt will never pace.' Cart-driver!"
mocked Hannah, in intense disgust.
"Nonsense, Aunt Hannah! Why, don't you know that when I was Johnny's
age my highest earthly ambition was to become a professor of odd
jobs, like the renowned Jim Morris, who was certainly the greatest
man of my acquaintance!"
While they were chatting away in this manner Sally brought in the
coffee and tea, which was soon followed by dishes of fried oysters,
stewed oysters, fried ham, and broiled chicken, and plates of
waffles, rolls, and biscuits, and in fact by all the luxuries of a
Maryland supper.
Hannah took her place at the head of the table and called her family
around her.
And all sat down at the board. Even the dog squatted himself down by
the side of Ishmael, where he knew he was sure of good treatment.
Sally, neatly dressed, waited on the table. And presently Jim, who
had a holiday this Saturday evening and was spending it with Sally,
came in, and after shaking hands with "Mr. Ishmael" and welcoming
him to the neighborhood, stood behind his chair and anticipated his
wants as if he, Jim, had been lord-in-waiting upon a prince.
When supper was over and the service cleared away, Ishmael, Reuben,
Hannah, and the children, who had been allowed to sit up a little
longer in honor of Ishmael's visit, gathered together on the front
porch to enjoy the delicious coolness of the clear, starlit, summer
evening.
While they were still sitting there, chatting over the old times and
the new days, the sound of wheels were heard approaching, and Sam
drove up in the wagon, in which was Ishmael's trunk and a large box.
Jim was called in from the kitchen, where he had been engaged in
making love to Sally, to assist in lifting the luggage in.
The trunk and the box were deposited in the middle of the parlor
floor to be opened,--because, forsooth, all that simple family
wished to be present and look on at the opening.
Ishmael's personal effects were in the trunk they guessed; but what
was in the box? that was the riddle and they could not solve it.
Both the children pressed forward to see. Even the dog stood with
his ears pricked, his nose straight and his eyes fixed on the
interesting box as though he expected a fox to break cover from it
as soon as it was opened.
Ishmael had mercy on their curiosity and ended their suspense by
ripping off the cover.
And lo! a handsome hobby-horse which he took out and set up before
the delighted eyes of Johnny.
He lifted the tiny man into the saddle, fixed his feet in the
stirrups, gave him the bridle, and showed him how to manage his
steed.
"There, Johnny," said Ishmael, "I cannot realize your aspirations in
respect to the driver's seat on the ox-cart, but I think this will
do for the present."
"Ah, yes!" cried the ecstatic Johnny, "put Molly up behind! put
Molly up behind and let her sit and hold on to me! My horse can
carry double."
"Never mind! I've got something for Molly that she will like better
than that," said Ishmael, smiling kindly on the little girl, who
stood with her finger in her mouth looking as if she thought herself
rather neglected.
And he unlocked his trunk and took from the top of it a large,
finely painted, substantially dressed wooden doll, that looked as if
it could bear a great deal of knocking about without injury.
Molly made an impulsive spring towards this treasure, and was
immediately rendered happy by its possession.
Then Sally was elevated to the seventh heaven by the gift of the
coral breastpin.
Hannah received a handsome brown silk dress and Reuben a new
writing-desk, and Sam a silver watch, and Jim a showy vest-pattern.
And Ishmael, having distributed his presents, ordered his trunk to
be carried upstairs, and the box into the outhouse.
When the children were tired of their play Hannah took them off to
hear them say their prayers and put them to bed.
And then Ishmael and Reuben were left alone.
And the opportunity that Ishmael wanted had come.
He could have spoken of his parents to either Hannah or Reuben
separately; but he felt that he could not enter upon the subject in
the presence of both together.
Now he drew his chair to the side of Gray and said:
"Uncle Reuben, I have something serious to say to you."
"Eh! Ishmael! what have I been doing of? I dessay something wrong in
the bringing up of the young uns!" said Reuben, in dismay, expecting
to be court-martialed upon some grave charge.
"It is of my parents that I wish to speak, Uncle Reuben."
"Oh!" said the latter, with an air of relief.
"You knew my mother, Uncle Reuben; but did you know who my father
was?"
"No," said Reuben thoughtfully. "All I knowed was as he married of
your mother in a private manner, and from sarcumstances never owned
up to it; but left her name and yourn to suffer for it--the cowardly
rascal, whoever he was!"
"Hush, Uncle Reuben, hush! You are speaking of my father!"
"And a nice father he wur to let your good mother's fair name come
to grief and leave you to perish a'most!"
"Uncle Reuben, you know too little of the circumstances to be able
to judge!"
"Law, Ishmael, it takes but little knowledge and less judgment to
understand, as when a feller fersakes his wife and child for
nothink, and leaves 'em to suffer undesarved scandal and cruel want,
he must be an unnatural monster and a parjured vilyun!"
"Uncle Reuben, you are unjust to my father! You must listen to his
vindication from my lips, and then you will acquit him of all blame.
But first I must tell you in confidence his name--it is Herman
Brudenell!"
"There now!" exclaimed Reuben, dropping his pipe in his
astonishment; "to think that I had that fact right afore my eyes all
my life and never could see it! Well, of all the blind moles and
owls, I must a been the blindest! And to think as I was the very
first as warned the poor girl agin him at that birthday feast! But,
law, arter that I never saw them together agin, no, not once! So I
had no cause to s'picion him, no more nor others! Well and now,
Ishmael, tell me all how and about it! Long as it was him, Mr.
Herman, there must a been something uncommon about it, for I don't
believe he'd do anythink dishonorable, not if he knowed it!"
"Not if he knew it! You are right there, Uncle Reuben," said
Ishmael, who immediately related the tragic story of his parents'
marriage, ending with the family wreck that had ruined all their
happiness.
"Dear me! dear, dear me! what a sorrowful story for all hands, to be
sure! Well, Ishmael, whoever was most to be pitied in former times,
your father is most to be pitied now. Be good to him," said Reuben.
"You may be sure that I will do all that I can to comfort my father,
Uncle Reuben. And now a word to you! Speak of this matter to me
alone whenever you like; or to Aunt Hannah alone whenever you like;
but to no others; and not even to us when we are together! for I
cannot bear that this old tragic history should become the subject
of general conversation."
"I know, Ishmael, my boy, I know! Mum's the word!" said Reuben.
And the entrance of Hannah at that moment put an end to the
conversation.
There was one subject upon which Ishmael felt a little uneasiness--
the dread of meeting Claudia.
He knew that she was not expected at Tanglewood until the first of
October; for so the judge had informed him in a letter that he had
received the very night before he left Washington. And this was only
the first of September; and he intended to give himself but two
weeks' holiday and to be back at his office by the fourteenth at
farthest, full sixteen days before the expected arrival of Lord and
Lady Vincent at Tanglewood.
Yet this dread of meeting Claudia haunted him. His love was dead;
but as he had told Bee, it had died hard and rent his heart in its
death-struggles, and that heart was sore to the touch of her
presence.
The judge's letter wherein he had spoken of the date of his daughter
and son-in-law's visit had been written several days previous to
this evening, and since that, news might have come from them,
speaking of some change of plan, involving an earlier visit.
These Ishmael felt were the mere chimeras of imagination. Still he
thought he would inquire concerning the family at Tanglewood.
"They are all well up at the house, I hope, Uncle Reuben?" he asked.
"Famous! And having everything shined up bright as a new shilling,
in honor of the arrival of my lord and my lady, who are expected,
come first o' next mont'."
"On the first of October? Are you sure?"
"On the first of October, sharp! Not a day earlier or later! I was
up to the house yes'day afternoon, just afore you come; and sure
enough the judge, he had just got a letter from the young madam,--my
lady, I mean,--in which she promised not to disappoint him, but to
be at Tanglewood punctually on the first of October to a day!"
Reuben, a hard-working man, who was "early to bed and early to
rise," concluded this speech with such an awful, uncompromising yawn
that Ishmael immediately took up and lighted his bedroom candle, bid
them all good-night, and retired.
He was once more in the humble little attic room where he had first
chanced upon a set of old law books and imbibed a taste for the
legal profession.
There was the old "screwtaw," as Reuben called it, and there was the
old well-thumbed volumes that had constituted his sole wealth of
books before he had the range of the well-filled library at
Tanglewood.
And there was the plain deal table standing within the dormer
window, where he had been accustomed to sit and read and write; or,
whenever he raised his head, to gaze out upon the ocean-like expanse
of water near the mouth of the Potomac.
After all, this humble attic chamber had many points of resemblance
with that more pretentious one he had occupied in Judge Merlin's
elegant mansion in Washington. Both were on the north side of the
Potomac. Each had a large dormer window looking southwest and
commanding an extensive view of the river; within the recess of each
window he had been accustomed to sit and read or write.
The only difference was that the window in the Washington attic
looked down upon the great city and the winding of the river among
wooded and rolling hills; while the window of the cottage here
looked down upon broad fields sloping to the shore, and upon the
vast sea-like expanse of water stretching out of sight under the
distant horizon.
The comparison between his two study-windows was in Ishmael's mind
as he stood gazing upon the shadowy green fields and the starlit sky
and water.
Not long he stood there; he was weary with his journey; so he
offered up his evening prayers and went to bed and to sleep.
Early in the morning he awoke, and arose to enjoy the beauty of a
summer Sunday in the quiet country. It was a deliciously cool,
bright, beautiful autumnal morning.
Ishmael looked out over land and water for a little while, and then
quickly dressed himself, offered up his morning prayers and went
below.
The family were already assembled in the parlor, and all greeted him
cordially.
The table was set, and Sally, neat in her Sunday clothes and
splendid in her coral brooch, was waiting ready to bring in the
breakfast.
And a fine breakfast it was, of fragrant coffee, rich cream, fresh
butter, Indian corn bread, Maryland biscuits, broiled birds, boiled
crabs, etc.
And Ishmael, upon whom the salt sea air of the coast was already
producing a healthful change, did ample justice to the luxuries
spread before him.
"For church this morning, Ishmael?" inquired Reuben.
"Yes; but I must walk over to Tanglewood and go with the judge. He
would scarcely ever forgive me if I were to go anywhere, even to
church, before visiting him."
"No more he wouldn't, that's a fact," admitted Reuben.