The same day the great news of Myrtle Hazard's accession to fortune came
out, the secret was told that she had promised herself in marriage to
Mr. Clement Lindsay. But her friends hardly knew how to congratulate her
on this last event. Her lover was gone, to risk his life, not improbably
to lose it, or to come home a wreck, crippled by wounds, or worn out
with disease.
Some of them wondered to see her so cheerful in such a moment of trial.
They could not know how the manly strength of Clement's determination
had nerved her for womanly endurance. They had not learned that a great
cause makes great souls, or reveals them to themselves,--a lesson taught
by so many noble examples in the times that followed. Myrtle's only
desire seemed to be to labor in some way to help the soldiers and their
families. She appeared to have forgotten everything for this duty; she
had no time for regrets, if she were disposed to indulge them, and she
hardly asked a question as to the extent of the fortune which had fallen
to her.
The next number of the “Banner and Oracle” contained two announcements
which she read with some interest when her attention was called to them.
They were as follows:
“A fair and accomplished daughter of this village comes, by the late
decision of the Supreme Court, into possession of a property estimated
at a million of dollars or more. It consists of a large tract of land
purchased many years ago by the late Malachi Withers, now become of
immense value by the growth of a city in its neighborhood, the opening
of mines, etc., etc. It is rumored that the lovely and highly educated
heiress has formed a connection looking towards matrimony with a certain
distinguished artist.”
“Our distinguished young townsman, William Murray Bradshaw, Esq., has
been among the first to respond to the call of the country for champions
to defend her from traitors. We understand that he has obtained a
captaincy in the __th regiment, about to march to the threatened seat of
war. May victory perch on his banners!”
The two lovers, parted by their own self-sacrificing choice in the very
hour that promised to bring them so much happiness, labored for the
common cause during all the terrible years of warfare, one in the camp
and the field, the other in the not less needful work which the good
women carried on at home, or wherever their services were needed.
Clement--now Captain Lindsay--returned at the end of his first campaign
charged with a special office. Some months later, after one of the great
battles, he was sent home wounded. He wore the leaf on his shoulder
which entitled him to be called Major Lindsay. He recovered from his
wound only too rapidly, for Myrtle had visited him daily in the military
hospital where he had resided for treatment; and it was bitter parting.
The telegraph wires were thrilling almost hourly with messages of death,
and the long pine boxes came by almost every train,--no need of asking
what they held.
Once more he came, detailed on special duty, and this time with the
eagle on his shoulder,--he was Colonel Lindsay. The lovers could not
part again of their own free will. Some adventurous women had followed
their husbands to the camp, and Myrtle looked as if she could play the
part of the Maid of Saragossa on occasion. So Clement asked her if she
would return with him as his wife; and Myrtle answered, with as
much willingness to submit as a maiden might fairly show under such
circumstances, that she would do his bidding. Thereupon, with the
shortest possible legal notice, Father Pemberton was sent for, and the
ceremony was performed in the presence of a few witnesses in the large
parlor at The Poplars, which was adorned with flowers, and hung round
with all the portraits of the dead members of the family, summoned
as witnesses to the celebration. One witness looked on with unmoved
features, yet Myrtle thought there was a more heavenly smile on her
faded lips than she had ever seen before beaming from the canvas,--it
was Ann Holyoake, the martyr to her faith, the guardian spirit of
Myrtle's visions, who seemed to breathe a holier benediction than
any words--even those of the good old Father Pemberton himself--could
convey.
They went back together to the camp. From that period until the end of
the war, Myrtle passed her time between the life of the tent and that of
the hospital. In the offices of mercy which she performed for the sick
and the wounded and the dying, the dross of her nature seemed to be
burned away. The conflict of mingled lives in her blood had ceased.
No lawless impulses usurped the place of that serene resolve which had
grown strong by every exercise of its high prerogative. If she had
been called now to die for any worthy cause, her race would have been
ennobled by a second martyr, true to the blood of her who died under the
cruel Queen.
Many sad sights she saw in the great hospital where she passed some
months at intervals,--one never to be forgotten. An officer was
brought into the ward where she was in attendance. “Shot through the
lungs,--pretty nearly gone.”
She went softly to his bedside. He was breathing with great difficulty;
his face was almost convulsed with the effort, but she recognized him in
a moment; it was Murray Bradshaw,--Captain Bradshaw, as she knew by the
bars on his coat flung upon the bed where he had just been laid.
She addressed him by name, tenderly as if he had been a dear brother;
she saw on his face that hers were to be the last kind words he would
ever hear.
He turned his glazing eyes upon her. “Who are you?” he said in a feeble
voice.
“An old friend,” she answered; “you knew me as Myrtle Hazard.”
He started. “You by my bedside! You caring for me!--for me, that burned
the title to your fortune to ashes before your eyes! You can't forgive
that,--I won't believe it! Don't you hate me, dying as I am?”
Myrtle was used to maintaining a perfect calmness of voice and
countenance, and she held her feelings firmly down. “I have nothing
to forgive you, Mr. Bradshaw. You may have meant to do me wrong, but
Providence raised up a protector for me. The paper you burned was not
the original,--it was a copy substituted for it--”
“And did the old man outwit me after all?” he cried out, rising suddenly
in bed, and clasping his hands behind his head to give him a few more
gasps of breath. “I knew he was cunning, but I thought I was his match.
It must have been Byles Gridley,--nobody else. And so the old man beat
me after all, and saved you from ruin! Thank God that it came out so!
Thank God! I can die now. Give me your hand, Myrtle.”
She took his hand, and held it until it gently loosed its hold, and he
ceased to breathe. Myrtle's creed was a simple one, with more of trust
and love in it than of systematized articles of belief. She cherished
the fond hope that these last words of one who had erred so miserably
were a token of some blessed change which the influences of the better
world might carry onward until he should have outgrown the sins and the
weaknesses of his earthly career.
Soon after this she rejoined her husband in the camp. From time to time
they received stray copies of the “Banner and Oracle,” which, to Myrtle
especially, were full of interest, even to the last advertisement. A
few paragraphs may be reproduced here which relate to persons who have
figured in this narrative.
“TEMPLE OF HYMEN.
“Married, on the 6th instant, Fordyce Hurlbut, M. D., to Olive, only
daughter of the Rev. Ambrose Eveleth. The editor of this paper returns
his acknowledgments for a bountiful slice of the wedding-cake. May their
shadows never be less!”
Not many weeks after this appeared the following:
“Died in this place, on the 28th instant, the venerable Lemuel Hurlbut,
M. D., at the great age of XCVI years.
“'With the ancient is wisdom, and in length of days understanding.'”
Myrtle recalled his kind care of her in her illness, and paid the
tribute of a sigh to his memory,--there was nothing in a death like his
to call for any aching regret.
The usual routine of small occurrences was duly recorded in the village
paper for some weeks longer, when she was startled and shocked by
receiving a number containing the following paragraph:
CALAMITOUS ACCIDENT
“It is known to our readers that the steeple of the old meeting-house
was struck by lightning about a month ago. The frame of the building was
a good deal jarred by the shock, but no danger was apprehended from the
injury it had received. On Sunday last the congregation came together
as usual. The Rev. Mr. Stoker was alone m the pulpit, the Rev. Doctor
Pemberton having been detained by slight indisposition. The sermon was
from the text, 'The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard
shall lie down with the kid.' (Isaiah xi. 6.) The pastor described the
millennium as--the reign of love and peace, in eloquent and impressive
language. He was in the midst of the prayer which follows the sermon,
and had jest put up a petition that the spirit of affection and faith
and trust might grow up and prevail among the flock of which he was the
shepherd, more especially those dear lambs whom he gathered with his
arm, and carried in his bosom, when the old sounding-board, which had
hung safely for nearly a century,--loosened, no doubt by the bolt which
had fallen on the church,--broke from its fastenings, and fell with
a loud crash upon the pulpit, crushing the Rev. Mr. Stoker under its
ruins. The scene that followed beggars description. Cries and shrieks
resounded through the horse. Two or three young women fainted entirely
away. Mr. Penhallow, Deacon Rumrill, Gifted Hopkins, Esq., and others,
came forward immediately, and after much effort succeeded in removing
the wreck of the sounding-board, and extricating their unfortunate
pastor. He was not fatally injured, it is hoped; but, sad to relate, he
received such a violent blow upon the spine of the back, that palsy of
the lower extremities is like to ensue. He is at present lying entirely
helpless. Every attention is paid to him by his affectionately devoted
family.”
Myrtle had hardly got over the pain which the reading of this
unfortunate occurrence gave her, when her eyes were gladdened by the
following pleasing piece of intelligence, contained in a subsequent
number of the village paper:
IMPOSING CEREMONY.
“The Reverend Doctor Pemberton performed the impressive rite of baptism
upon the first-born child of our distinguished townsman, Gifted Hopkins,
Esq., the Bard of Oxbow Village, and Mrs. Susan P. Hopkins, his amiable
and respected lady. The babe conducted himself with singular propriety
on this occasion. He received the Christian name of Byron Tennyson
Browning. May he prove worthy of his name and his parentage!”
The end of the war came at last, and found Colonel Lindsay among its
unharmed survivors. He returned with Myrtle to her native village, and
they established themselves, at the request of Miss Silence Withers,
in the old family mansion. Miss Cynthia, to whom Myrtle made a generous
allowance, had gone to live in a town not many miles distant, where she
had a kind of home on sufferance, as well as at The Poplars. This was a
convenience just then, because Nurse Byloe was invited to stay with them
for a month or two; and one nurse and two single women under the same
roof keep each other in a stew all the time, as the old dame somewhat
sharply remarked.
Master Byles Gridley had been appointed Myrtle's legal protector, and,
with the assistance of Mr. Penhallow, had brought the property she
inherited into a more manageable and productive form; so that, when
Clement began his fine studio behind the old mansion, he felt that at
least he could pursue his art, or arts, if he chose to give himself
to sculpture, without that dreadful hag, Necessity, standing by him to
pinch the features of all his ideals, and give them something of her own
likeness.
Silence Withers was more cheerful now that she had got rid of her
responsibility. She embellished her spare person a little more than
in former years. These young people looked so happy! Love was not so
unendurable, perhaps, after all. No woman need despair,--especially if
she has a house over her, and a snug little property. A worthy man, a
former missionary, of the best principles, but of a slightly jocose and
good-humored habit, thought that he could piece his widowed years with
the not insignificant, fraction of life left to Miss Silence, to their
mutual advantage. He came to the village, therefore, where Father
Pemberton was very glad to have him supply the pulpit in the place of
his unfortunate disabled colleague. The courtship soon began, and was
brisk enough; for the good man knew there was no time to lose at his
period of life,--or hers either, for that matter. It was a rather odd
specimen of love-making; for he was constantly trying to subdue his
features to a gravity which they were not used to, and she was as
constantly endeavoring to be as lively as possible, with the innocent
desire of pleasing her light-hearted suitor.
“Vieille fille fait jeune mariee.” Silence was ten years younger as a
bride than she had seemed as a lone woman. One would have said she had
got out of the coach next to the hearse, and got into one some half
a dozen behind it,--where there is often good and reasonably cheerful
conversation going on about the virtues of the deceased, the probable
amount of his property, or the little slips he may have committed, and
where occasionally a subdued pleasantry at his expense sets the four
waistcoats shaking that were lifting with sighs a half-hour ago in
the house of mourning. But Miss Silence, that was, thought that two
families, with all the possible complications which time might bring,
would be better in separate establishments. She therefore proposed
selling The Poplars to Myrtle and her husband, and removing to a house
in the village, which would be large enough for them, at least for the
present. So the young folks bought the old house, and paid a mighty good
price for it; and enlarged it, and beautified and glorified it, and one
fine morning went together down to the Widow Hopkins's, whose residence
seemed in danger of being a little crowded,--for Gifted lived there with
his Susan,--and what had happened might happen again,--and gave Master
Byles Gridley a formal and most persuasively worded invitation to come
up and make his home with them at The Poplars.
Now Master Gridley has been betrayed into palpable and undisguised
weakness at least once in the presence of this assembly, who are looking
upon him almost for the last time before they part from him, and see his
face no more. Let us not inquire too curiously, then, how he received
this kind proposition. It is enough, that, when he found that a new
study had been built on purpose for him, and a sleeping-room attached to
it so that he could live there without disturbing anybody if he
chose, he consented to remove there for a while, and that he was there
established amidst great rejoicing.
Cynthia Badlam had fallen of late into poor health. She found at last
that she was going; and as she had a little property of her own,--as
almost all poor relations have, only there is not enough of it,--she
was much exercised in her mind as to the final arrangements to be made
respecting its disposition. The Rev. Dr. Pemberton was one day surprised
by a message, that she wished to have an interview with him. He rode
over to the town in which she was residing, and there had a long
conversation with her upon this matter. When this was settled, her mind
seemed too be more at ease. She died with a comfortable assurance that
she was going to a better world, and with a bitter conviction that it
would be hard to find one that would offer her a worse lot than being a
poor relation in this.
Her little property was left to Rev. Eliphalet Pemberton and Jacob
Penhallow, Esq., to be by them employed for such charitable purposes as
they should elect, educational or other. Father Pemberton preached an
admirable funeral sermon, in which he praised her virtues, known to this
people among whom she had long lived, and especially that crowning act
by which she devoted all she had to purposes of charity-and benevolence.
The old clergyman seemed to have renewed his youth since the misfortune
of his colleague had incapacitated him from labor. He generally preached
in the forenoon now, and to the great acceptance of the people,--for the
truth was that the honest minister who had married Miss Silence was
not young enough or good-looking enough to be an object of personal
attentions like the Rev. Joseph Bellamy Stoker, and the old minister
appeared to great advantage contrasted with him in the pulpit. Poor Mr.
Stoker was now helpless, faithfully and tenderly waited upon by his own
wife, who had regained her health and strength,--in no small measure,
perhaps, from the great need of sympathy and active aid which her
unfortunate husband now experienced. It was an astonishment to herself
when she found that she who had so long been served was able to serve
another. Some who knew his errors thought his accident was a judgment;
but others believed that it was only a mercy in disguise,--it snatched
him roughly from his sin, but it opened his heart to gratitude towards
her whom his neglect could not alienate, and through gratitude to
repentance and better thoughts. Bathsheba had long ago promised herself
to Cyprian Eveleth; and, as he was about to become the rector of a
parish in the next town, the marriage was soon to take place.
How beautifully serene Master Byles Gridley's face was growing! Clement
loved to study its grand lines, which had so much strength and fine
humanity blended in them. He was so fascinated by their noble expression
that he sometimes seemed to forget himself, and looked at him more
like an artist taking his portrait than like an admiring friend. He
maintained that Master Gridley had a bigger bump of benevolence and as
large a one of cautiousness as the two people most famous for the size
of these organs on the phrenological chart he showed him, and proved it,
or nearly proved it, by careful measurements of his head. Master Gridley
laughed, and read him a passage on the pseudo-sciences out of his book.
The disposal of Miss Cynthia's bequest was much discussed in the
village. Some wished the trustees would use it to lay the foundations of
a public library. Others thought it should be applied for the relief of
the families of soldiers who had fallen in the war. Still another set
would take it to build a monument to the memory of those heroes. The
trustees listened with the greatest candor to all these gratuitous
hints. It was, however, suggested, in a well-written anonymous article
which appeared in the village paper, that it was desirable to follow the
general lead of the testator's apparent preference. The trustees were
at liberty to do as they saw fit; but, other things being equal, same
educational object should be selected.
If there were any orphan children in the place, it would seem to be
very proper to devote the moderate sum bequeathed to educating them. The
trustees recognized the justice of this suggestion. Why not apply it
to the instruction and maintenance of those two pretty and promising
children, virtually orphans, whom the charitable Mrs. Hopkins had cared
for so long without any recompense, and at a cost which would soon
become beyond her means? The good people of the neighborhood accepted
this as the best solution of the difficulty. It was agreed upon at
length by the trustees, that the Cynthia Badlam Fund for Educational
Purposes should be applied for the benefit of the two foundlings, known
as Isosceles and Helminthia Hopkins.
Master Bytes Gridley was greatly exercised about the two “preposterous
names,” as he called them, which in a moment of eccentric impulse he had
given to these children of nature. He ventured to hint as much to Mrs.
Hopkins. The good dame was vastly surprised. She thought they was about
as pooty names as anybody had had given 'em in the village. And they was
so handy, spoke short, Sossy and Minthy,--she never should know how to
call 'em anything else.
“But my dear Mrs. Hopkins,” Master Gridley urged, “if you knew the
meaning they have to the ears of scholars, you would see that I did very
wrong to apply such absurd names to my little fellow-creatures, and that
I am bound to rectify my error. More than that, my dear madam, I mean
to consult you as to the new names; and if we can fix upon proper and
pleasing ones, it is my intention to leave a pretty legacy in my will to
these interesting children.”
“Mr. Gridley,” said Mrs. Hopkins, “you're the best man I ever see, or
ever shall see, ... except my poor dear Ammi.... I 'll do jest as you say
about that, or about anything else in all this livin' world.”
“Well, then, Mrs. Hopkins, what shall be the boy's name?”
“Byles Gridley Hopkins!” she answered instantly.
“Good Lord!” said Mr. Gridley, “think a minute, my dear madam. I will
not say one word,--only think a minute, and mention some name that will
not suggest quite so many winks and whispers.”
She did think something less than a minute, and then said aloud,
“Abraham Lincoln Hopkins.”
“Fifteen thousand children have been so christened during the past year,
on a moderate computation.”
“Do think of some name yourself, Mr. Gridley; I shall like anything
that you like. To think of those dear babes having a fund--if that's the
right name--on purpose for 'em, and a promise of a legacy, I hope they
won't get that till they're a hundred year old!”
“What if we change Isosceles to Theodore, Mrs. Hopkins? That means the
gift of God, and the child has been a gift from Heaven, rather than a
burden.”
Mrs. Hopkins seized her apron, and held it to her eyes. She was weeping.
“Theodore!” she said, “Theodore! My little brother's name, that I buried
when I was only eleven year old. Drownded. The dearest little child that
ever you see. I have got his little mug with Theodore on it now. Kep' o'
purpose. Our little Sossy shall have it. Theodore P. Hopkins,--sha'n't
it be, Mr. Gridley?”
“Well, if you say so; but why that P., Mrs. Hopkins? Theodore Parker, is
it?”
“Doesn't P. stand for Pemberton, and isn't Father Pemberton the best man
in the world--next to you, Mr. Gridley?”
“Well, well, Mrs. Hopkins, let it be so, if you are suited, I am. Now
about Helminthia; there can't be any doubt about what we ought to call
her,--surely the friend of orphans should be remembered in naming one of
the objects of her charity.”
“Cynthia Badlam Fund Hopkins,” said the good woman triumphantly,--“is
that what you mean?”
“Suppose we leave out one of the names,--four are too many. I think the
general opinion will be that Hehninthia should unite the names of her
two benefactresses,--Cynthia Badlam Hopkins.”
“Why, law! Mr. Gridley, is n't that nice?--Minthy and Cynthy,--there
ain't but one letter of difference! Poor Cynthy would be pleased if she
could know that one of our babes was to be called after her. She was
dreadful fond of children.”
On one of the sweetest Sundays that ever made Oxbow Village lovely, the
Rev. Dr. Eliphalet Pemberton was summoned to officiate at three most
interesting ceremonies,--a wedding and two christenings, one of the
latter a double one.
The first was celebrated at the house of the Rev. Mr. Stoker, between
the Rev. Cyprian Eveleth and Bathsheba, daughter of the first-named
clergyman. He could not be present on account of his great infirmity,
but the door of his chamber was left open that he might hear the
marriage service performed. The old, white-haired minister, assisted,
as the papers said, by the bridegroom's father, conducted the ceremony
according to the Episcopal form. When he came to those solemn words in
which the husband promises fidelity to the wife so long as they both
shall live, the nurse, who was watching, near the poor father, saw him
bury his face in his pillow, and heard him murmur the words, “God be
merciful to me a sinner!”
The christenings were both to take place at the same service, in the old
meeting-house. Colonel Clement Lindsay and Myrtle his wife came in, and
stout Nurse Byloe bore their sturdy infant in her arms. A slip of
paper was handed to the Reverend Doctor on which these words were
written:--“The name is Charles Hazard.”
The solemn and touching rite was then performed; and Nurse Byloe
disappeared with the child, its forehead glistening with the dew of its
consecration.
Then, hand in hand, like the babes in the wood, marched up the broad
aisle--marshalled by Mrs. Hopkins in front, and Mrs. Gifted Hopkins
bringing up the rear--the two children hitherto known as Isosceles and
Helminthia. They had been well schooled, and, as the mysterious and to
them incomprehensible ceremony was enacted, maintained the most stoical
aspect of tranquillity. In Mrs. Hopkins's words, “They looked like
picters, and behaved like angels.”
That evening, Sunday evening as it was, there was a quiet meeting of
some few friends at The Poplars. It was such a great occasion that
the Sabbatical rules, never strict about Sunday evening,--which was,
strictly speaking, secular time,--were relaxed. Father Pemberton
was there, and Master Byles Gridley, of course, and the Rev. Ambrose
Eveleth, with his son and his daughter-in-law, Bathsheba, and her
mother, now in comfortable health, aunt Silence and her husband, Doctor
Hurlbut and his wife (Olive Eveleth that was), Jacob Penhallow, Esq.,
Mrs. Hopkins, her son and his wife (Susan Posey that was), the
senior deacon of the old church (the admirer of the great Scott), the
Editor-in-chief of the “Banner and Oracle,” and in the background Nurse
Byloe and the privileged servant, Mistress Kitty Fagan, with a few
others whose names we need not mention.
The evening was made pleasant with sacred music, and the fatigues of two
long services repaired by such simple refections as would not turn the
holy day into a day of labor. A large paper copy of the new edition of
Byles Gridley's remarkable work was lying on the table. He never looked
so happy,--could anything fill his cup fuller? In the course of the
evening Clement spoke of the many trials through which they had passed
in common with vast numbers of their countrymen, and some of those
peculiar dangers which Myrtle had had to encounter in the course of a
life more eventful, and attended with more risks, perhaps, than most of
them imagined. But Myrtle, he said, had always been specially cared for.
He wished them to look upon the semblance of that protecting spirit who
had been faithful to her in her gravest hours of trial and danger. If
they would follow him into one of the lesser apartments up stairs they
would have an opportunity to do so.
Myrtle wondered a little, but followed with the rest. They all ascended
to the little projecting chamber, through the window of which her
scarlet jacket caught the eyes of the boys paddling about on the
river in those early days when Cyprian Eveleth gave it the name of the
Fire-hang-bird's Nest.
The light fell softly but clearly on the dim and faded canvas from
which looked the saintly features of the martyred woman, whose continued
presence with her descendants was the old family legend. But underneath
it Myrtle was surprised to see a small table with some closely covered
object upon it. It was a mysterious arrangement, made without any
knowledge on her part.
“Now, then, Kitty!” Mr. Lindsay said.
Kitty Fagan, who had evidently been taught her part, stepped forward,
and removed the cloth which concealed the unknown object. It was a
lifelike marble bust of Master Byles Gridley.
“And this is what you have been working at so long,--is it, Clement?”
Myrtle said.
“Which is the image of your protector, Myrtle?”, he answered, smiling.
Myrtle Hazard Lindsay walked up to the bust and kissed its marble
forehead, saying, “This is the face of my Guardian Angel.”
End of Project Gutenberg's The Guardian Angel, by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.