The publication of the advertisement in the paper brought the village
fever of the last two days to its height. Myrtle Hazard's disappearance
had been pretty well talked round through the immediate neighborhood,
but now that forty-eight hours of search and inquiry had not found her,
and the alarm was so great that the young girl's friends were willing
to advertise her in a public journal, it was clear that the gravest
apprehensions were felt and justified. The paper carried the tidings to
many who had not heard it. Some of the farmers who had been busy all
the week with their fields came into the village in their wagons on
Saturday, and there first learned the news, and saw the paper, and the
placards which were posted up, and listened, open-mouthed, to the whole
story.
Saturday was therefore a day of much agitation in Oxbow Village, and
some stir in the neighboring settlements. Of course there was a great
variety of comment, its character depending very much on the sense,
knowledge, and disposition of the citizens, gossips, and young people
who talked over the painful and mysterious occurrence.
The Withers Homestead was naturally the chief centre of interest. Nurse
Byloe, an ancient and voluminous woman, who had known the girl when she
was a little bright-eyed child, handed over “the baby” she was holding
to another attendant, and got on her things to go straight up to The
Poplars. She had been holding “the baby” these forty years and more,
but somehow it never got to be more than a month or six weeks old. She
reached The Poplars after much toil and travail. Mistress Fagan, Irish,
house-servant, opened the door, at which Nurse Byloe knocked softly, as
she was in the habit of doing at the doors of those who sent for her.
“Have you heerd anything yet, Kitty Fagan?” asked Nurse Byloe.
“Niver a blissed word,” said she. “Miss Withers is upstairs with Miss
Bathsheby, a cryin' and a lamentin'. Miss Badlam's in the parlor. The
men has been draggin' the pond. They have n't found not one thing, but
only jest two, and that was the old coffeepot and the gray cat,--it's
them nigger boys hanged her with a string they tied round her neck and
then drownded her.” [P. Fagan, Jr., Aet. 14, had a snarl of similar
string in his pocket.]
Mistress Fagan opened the door of the best parlor. A woman was sitting
there alone, rocking back and forward, and fanning herself with the
blackest of black fans.
“Nuss Byloe, is that you? Well, to be sure, I'm glad to see you, though
we 're all in trouble. Set right down, Nuss, do. Oh, it's dreadful
times!”
A handkerchief which was in readiness for any emotional overflow was
here called on for its function.
Nurse Byloe let herself drop into a flaccid squab chair with one of
those soft cushions, filled with slippery feathers, which feel so
fearfully like a very young infant, or a nest of little kittens, as they
flatten under the subsiding person.
The woman in the rocking-chair was Miss Cynthia Badlam, second-cousin
of Miss Silence Withers, with whom she had been living as a companion at
intervals for some years. She appeared to be thirty-five years old, more
or less, and looked not badly for that stage of youth, though of course
she might have been handsomer at twenty, as is often the case with
women. She wore a not unbecoming cap; frequent headaches had thinned her
locks somewhat of late years. Features a little too sharp, a keen, gray
eye, a quick and restless glance, which rather avoided being met, gave
the impression that she was a wide-awake, cautious, suspicious, and,
very possibly, crafty person.
“I could n't help comin',” said Nurse Byloe, “we do so love our
babies,--how can we help it, Miss Badlam?”
The spinster colored up at the nurse's odd way of using the possessive
pronoun, and dropped her eyes, as was natural on hearing such a speech.
“I never tended children as you have, Nuss,” she said. “But I 've known
Myrtle Hazard ever since she was three years old, and to think she
should have come to such an end,--'The heart is deceitful above all
things and desperately wicked,'”--and she wept.
“Why, Cynthy Badlam, what do y' mean?” said Nurse Byloe. “Y' don't think
anything dreadful has come o' that child's wild nater, do ye?”
“Child!” said Cynthia Badlam,--“child enough to wear this very gown I
have got on and not find it too big for her neither.” [It would have
pinched Myrtle here and there pretty shrewdly.]
The two women looked each other in the eyes with subtle interchange of
intelligence, such as belongs to their sex in virtue of its specialty.
Talk without words is half their conversation, just as it is all the
conversation of the lower animals. Only the dull senses of men are dead
to it as to the music of the spheres.
Their minds travelled along, as if they had been yoked together, through
whole fields of suggestive speculation, until the dumb growths
of thought ripened in both their souls into articulate speech,
consentingly, as the movement comes after the long stillness of a Quaker
meeting.
Their lips opened at the same moment. “You don't mean”--began Nurse
Byloe, but stopped as she heard Miss Badlam also speaking.
“They need n't drag the pond,” she said. “They need n't go beating the
woods as if they were hunting a patridge,--though for that matter Myrtle
Hazard was always more like a patridge than she was like a pullet.
Nothing ever took hold of that girl,--not catechising, nor advising, nor
punishing. It's that dreadful will of hers never was broke. I've always
been afraid that she would turn out a child of wrath. Did y' ever watch
her at meetin' playing with posies and looking round all the time of
the long prayer? That's what I've seen her do many and many a time. I'm
afraid--Oh dear! Miss Byloe, I'm afraid to say--what I'm afraid of. Men
are so wicked, and young girls are full of deceit and so ready to listen
to all sorts of artful creturs that take advantage of their ignorance
and tender years.” She wept once more, this time with sobs that seemed
irrepressible.
“Dear suz!” said the nurse, “I won't believe no sech thing as wickedness
about Myrtle Hazard. You mean she's gone an' run off with some
good-for-nothin' man or other? If that ain't what y' mean, what do y'
mean? It can't be so, Miss Badlam: she's one o' my babies. At any rate,
I handled her when she fust come to this village,--and none o' my babies
never did sech a thing. Fifteen year old, and be bringin' a whole family
into disgrace! If she was thirty year old, or five-an'-thirty or more,
and never'd had a chance to be married, and if one o' them artful
creturs you was talkin' of got hold of her, then, to be sure,--why, dear
me!--law! I never thought, Miss Badlam!--but then of course you could
have had your pickin' and choosin' in the time of it; and I don't mean
to say it's too late now if you felt called that way, for you're better
lookin' now than some that's younger, and there's no accountin' for
tastes.”
A sort of hysteric twitching that went through the frame of Cynthia
Badlam dimly suggested to the old nurse that she was not making her
slightly indiscreet personality much better by her explanations. She
stopped short, and surveyed the not uncomely person of the maiden lady
sitting before her with her handkerchief pressed to her eyes, and
one hand clenching the arm of the reeking-chair, as if some spasm
had clamped it there. The nurse looked at her with a certain growing
interest she had never felt before. It was the first time for some years
that she had had such a chance, partly because Miss Cynthia had often
been away for long periods,--partly because she herself had been busy
professionally. There was no occasion for her services, of course, in
the family at The Poplars; and she was always following round from place
to place after that everlasting migratory six-weeks or less old baby.
There was not a more knowing pair of eyes, in their way, in a circle of
fifty miles, than those kindly tranquil orbs that Nurse Byloe fixed
on Cynthia Badlam. The silver threads in the side fold of hair, the
delicate lines at the corner of the eye, the slight drawing down at
the angle of the mouth,--almost imperceptible, but the nurse dwelt upon
it,--a certain moulding of the features as of an artist's clay model
worked by delicate touches with the fingers, showing that time or pain
or grief had had a hand in shaping them, the contours, the adjustment of
every fold of the dress, the attitude, the very way of breathing, were
all passed through the searching inspection of the ancient expert,
trained to know all the changes wrought by time and circumstance. It
took not so long as it takes to describe it, but it was an analysis of
imponderables, equal to any of Bunsen's with the spectroscope.
Miss Badlam removed her handkerchief and looked in a furtive,
questioning way, in her turn, upon the nurse.
“It's dreadful close here,--I'm 'most smothered,” Nurse Byloe said; and,
putting her hand to her throat, unclasped the catch of the necklace of
gold beads she had worn since she was a baby,--a bead having been added
from time to time as she thickened. It lay in a deep groove of her large
neck, and had not troubled her in breathing before, since the day when
her husband was run over by an ox-team.
At this moment Miss Silence Withers entered, followed by Bathsheba
Stoker, daughter of Rev. Joseph Bellamy Stoker.
She was the friend of Myrtle, and had come to comfort Miss Silence, and
consult with her as to what further search they should institute. The
two, Myrtle's aunt and her friend, were as unlike as they could well
be. Silence Withers was something more than forty years old, a shadowy,
pinched, sallow, dispirited, bloodless woman, with the habitual look of
the people in the funeral carriage which follows next to the hearse, and
the tone in speaking that may be noticed in a household where one of its
members is lying white and still in a cool, darkened chamber overhead.
Bathsheba Stoker was not called handsome; but she had her mother's
youthful smile, which was so fresh and full of sweetness that she seemed
like a beauty while she was speaking or listening; and she could never
be plain so long as any expression gave life to her features. In perfect
repose, her face, a little prematurely touched by sad experiences,--for
she was but seventeen years old,--had the character and decision stamped
in its outlines which any young man who wanted a companion to warn,
to comfort, and command him, might have depended on as warranting the
courage, the sympathy, and the sense demanded for such a responsibility.
She had been trying her powers of consolation on Miss Silence. It was a
sudden freak of Myrtle's. She had gone off on some foolish but innocent
excursion. Besides, she was a girl that would take care of herself;
for she was afraid of nothing, and nimbler than any boy of her age, and
almost as strong as any. As for thinking any bad thoughts about her,
that was a shame; she cared for none of the young fellows that were
round her. Cyprian Eveleth was the one she thought most of; but Cyprian
was as true as his sister Olive, and who else was there?
To all this Miss Silence answered only by sighing and moaning, For two
whole days she had been kept in constant fear and worry, afraid every
minute of some tragical message, perplexed by the conflicting advice
of all manner of officious friends, sleepless of course through the two
nights, and now utterly broken down and collapsed.
Bathsheba had said all she could in the way of consolation, and hastened
back to her mother's bedside, which she hardly left, except for the
briefest of visits.
“It's a great trial, Miss Withers, that's laid on you,” said Nurse
Byloe.
“If I only knew that she was dead, and had died in the Lord,” Miss
Silence answered,--“if I only knew that but if she is living in sin, or
dead in wrong--doing, what is to become of me?--Oh, what is to become of
me when 'He maketh inquisition far blood'?”
“Cousin Silence,” said Miss Cynthia, “it is n't your fault, if that
young girl has taken to evil ways. If going to meeting three times every
Sabbath day, and knowing the catechism by heart, and reading of good
books, and the best of daily advice, and all needful discipline, could
have corrected her sinful nature, she would never have run away from
a home where she enjoyed all these privileges. It's that Indian blood,
Cousin Silence. It's a great mercy you and I have n't got any of it in
our veins! What can you expect of children that come from heathens and
savages? You can't lay it to yourself, Cousin Silence, if Myrtle Hazard
goes wrong”--
“The Lord will lay it to me,--the Lord will lay it to me,” she moaned.
“Did n't he say to Cain, 'Where is Abel, thy brother?'”
Nurse Byloe was getting very red in the face. She had had about enough
of this talk between the two women. “I hope the Lard 'll take care of
Myrtle Hazard fust, if she's in trouble, 'n' wants help,” she said;
“'n' then look out for them that comes next. Y' 're too suspicious, Miss
Badlam; y' 're too easy to believe stories. Myrtle Hazard was as pretty
a child and as good a child as ever I see, if you did n't rile her;
'n' d' d y' ever see one o' them hearty lively children, that had n't
a sperrit of its own? For my part, I'd rather handle one of 'em than a
dozen o' them little waxy, weak-eyed, slim-necked creturs that always do
what they tell 'em to, and die afore they're a dozen year old; and never
was the time when I've seen Myrtle Hazard, sence she was my baby, but
what it's always been, 'Good mornin', Miss Byloe,' and 'How do you do,
Miss Byloe? I'm so glad to see you.' The handsomest young woman, too, as
all the old folks will agree in tellin' you, s'ence the time o' Judith
Pride that was,--the Pride of the County they used to call her, for her
beauty. Her great-grandma, y' know, Miss Cynthy, married old King David
Withers. What I want to know is, whether anything has been heerd, and
jest what's been done about findin' the poor thing. How d' ye know she
has n't fell into the river? Have they fired cannon? They say that busts
the gall of drownded folks, and makes the corpse rise. Have they looked
in the woods everywhere? Don't believe no wrong of nobody, not till y'
must,--least of all of them that come o' the same folks, partly, and
has lived with yo all their days. I tell y', Myrtle Hazard's jest as
innocent of all what y' 've been thinkin' about,--bless the poor child;
she's got a soul that's as clean and sweet-well, as a pond-lily when it
fust opens of a mornin', without a speck on it no more than on the fust
pond-lily God Almighty ever made!”
That gave a turn to the two women's thoughts, and their handkerchiefs
went up to their faces. Nurse Byloe turned her eyes quickly on Cynthia
Badlam, and repeated her close inspection of every outline and every
light and shadow in her figure. She did not announce any opinion as
to the age or good looks or general aspect or special points of Miss
Cynthia; but she made a sound which the books write humph! but which
real folks make with closed lips, thus: m'!--a sort of half-suppressed
labio-palato-nasal utterance, implying that there is a good deal which
might be said, and all the vocal organs want to have a chance at it, if
there is to be any talking.
Friends and neighbors were coming in and out; and the next person that
came was the old minister, of whom, and of his colleague, the Rev.
Joseph Bellamy Stoker, some account may here be introduced.
The Rev. Eliphalet Pemberton Father Pemberton as brother ministers
called him, Priest Pemberton as he was commonly styled by the country
people--would have seemed very old, if the medical patriarch of the
village had not been so much older. A man over ninety is a great comfort
to all his elderly neighbors: he is a picket-guard at the extreme
outpost; and the young folks of sixty and seventy feel that the enemy
must get by him before he can come near their camp. Dr. Hurlbut, at
ninety-two, made Priest Pemberton seem comparatively little advanced;
but the college catalogue showed that he must be seventy-five years old,
if, as we may suppose, he was twenty at the time of his graduation.
He was a man of noble presence always, and now, in the grandeur of
his flowing silver hair and with the gray shaggy brows overhanging his
serene and solemn eyes, with the slow gravity of motion and the measured
dignity of speech which gave him the air of an old pontiff, he was an
imposing personage to look upon, and could be awful, if the occasion
demanded it. His creed was of the sternest: he was looked up to as a
bulwark against all the laxities which threatened New England theology.
But it was a creed rather of the study and of the pulpit than of
every-day application among his neighbors. He dealt too much in the
lofty abstractions which had always such fascinations for the higher
class of New England divines, to busy himself as much as he might have
done with the spiritual condition of individuals. He had also a good
deal in him of what he used to call the Old Man, which, as he confessed,
he had never succeeded in putting off,--meaning thereby certain
qualities belonging to humanity, as much as the natural gifts of the
dumb creatures belong to them, and tending to make a man beloved by his
weak and erring fellow-mortals.
In the olden time he would have lived and died king of his parish,
monarch, by Divine right, as the noblest, grandest, wisest of all that
made up the little nation within hearing of his meeting-house bell. But
Young Calvinism has less reverence and more love of novelty than its
forefathers. It wants change, and it loves young blood. Polyandry is
getting to be the normal condition of the Church; and about the time a
man is becoming a little overripe for the livelier human sentiments, he
may be pretty sure the women are looking round to find him a colleague.
In this way it was that the Rev. Joseph Bellamy Stoker became the
colleague of the Rev. Eliphalet Pemberton.
If one could have dived deep below all the Christian graces--the
charity, the sweetness of disposition, the humility--of Father
Pemberton, he would have found a small remnant of the “Old Man,” as the
good clergyman would have called it, which was never in harmony with the
Rev. Mr. Stoker. The younger divine felt his importance, and made his
venerable colleague feel that he felt it. Father Pemberton had a fair
chance at rainy Sundays and hot summer-afternoon services; but the
junior pushed him aside without ceremony whenever he thought there was
like to be a good show in the pews. As for those courtesies which
the old need, to soften the sense of declining faculties and failing
attractions, the younger pastor bestowed them in public, but was
negligent of them, to say the least, when not on exhibition.
Good old Father Pemberton could not love this man, but he would not hate
him, and he never complained to him or of him. It would have been of no
use if he had: the women of the parish had taken up the Rev. Mr. Stoker;
and when the women run after a minister or a doctor, what do the men
signify?
Why the women ran after him, some thought it was not hard to guess. He
was not ill-looking, according to the village standard, parted his hair
smoothly, tied his white cravat carefully, was fluent, plausible, had a
gift in prayer, was considered eloquent, was fond of listening to their
spiritual experiences, and had a sickly wife. This is what Byles Gridley
said; but he was apt to be caustic at times.
Father Pemberton visited his people but rarely. Like Jonathan Edwards,
like David Osgood, he felt his call to be to study-work, and was
impatient of the egotisms and spiritual megrims, in listening to which,
especially from the younger females of his flock, his colleague had won
the hearts of so many of his parishioners. His presence had a wonderful
effect in restoring the despondent Miss Silence to her equanimity; for
not all the hard divinity he had preached for half a century had spoiled
his kindly nature; and not the gentle Melanchthon himself, ready to
welcome death as a refuge from the rage and bitterness of theologians,
was more in contrast with the disputants with whom he mingled, than
the old minister, in the hour of trial, with the stern dogmatist in his
study, forging thunderbolts to smite down sinners.
It was well that there were no tithing-men about on that next day,
Sunday; for it shone no Sabbath day for the young men within half a
dozen miles of the village. They were out on Bear Hill the whole day,
beating up the bushes as if for game, scaring old crows out of their
ragged nests, and in one dark glen startling a fierce-eyed, growling,
bobtailed catamount, who sat spitting and looking all ready to spring at
them, on the tall tree where he clung with his claws unsheathed, until a
young fellow came up with a gun and shot him dead. They went through and
through the swamp at Musquash Hollow; but found nothing better than
a wicked old snapping-turtle, evil to behold, with his snaky head and
alligator tail, but worse to meddle with, if his horny jaws were near
enough to spring their man-trap on the curious experimenter. At Wood-End
there were some Indians, ill-conditioned savages in a dirty tent, making
baskets, the miracle of which was that they were so clean. They had seen
a young lady answering the description, about a week ago. She had bought
a basket. Asked them if they had a canoe they wanted to sell.--Eyes like
hers (pointing to a squaw with a man's hat on).
At Pocasset the young men explored all the thick woods,--some who ought
to have known better taking their guns, which made a talk, as one might
well suppose it would. Hunting on a Sabbath day! They did n't mean to
shoot Myrtle Hazard, did they? it was keenly asked. A good many said it
was all nonsense, and a mere excuse to get away from meeting and have
a sort of frolic on pretence that it was a work of necessity and mercy,
one or both.
While they were scattering themselves about in this way, some in
earnest, some rejoicing in the unwonted license, lifting off for a
little while that enormous Sabbath-day pressure which weighs like forty
atmospheres on every true-born Puritan, two young men had been since
Friday in search of the lost girl, each following a clue of his own, and
determined to find her if she was among the living.
Cyprian Eveleth made for the village of Mapleton, where his sister Olive
was staying, trusting that, with her aid, he might get a clue to the
mystery of Myrtle's disappearance.
William Murray Bradshaw struck for a railroad train going to the great
seaport, at a station where it stops for wood and water.
In the mean time, a third young man, Gifted Hopkins by name, son of
the good woman already mentioned, sat down, with tears in his eyes, and
wrote those touching stanzas, “The Lost Myrtle,” which were printed in
the next “Banner and Oracle,” and much admired by many who read them.