I watch thee from the quiet shore;
Thy spirit up to mine can reach;
But in dear words of human speech
We two communicate no more.
TENNYSON.
Mrs. Nettley was putting the finishing touches to her
breakfast -- that is, to her breakfast in prospect. A dish of
fish and the coffee-pot stood keeping each other cheerful on
one side the hearth; and Mrs. Nettley was just, with some
trouble, hanging a large round griddle over the blazing fire.
Her brother stood by, with his hands on his sides, and a
rather complacent face.
"What's that flap-jack going on for?"
"For something I like, if you don't," said his sister. "George
--"
Mrs Nettley stopped while her iron ladle was carefully
bestowing large spoonfuls of batter all round the griddle.
"What?" said Mr. Inchbald, when it was done.
"Somebody up-stairs likes 'em. Don't you suppose you could get
Mr. Landholm to come down. He likes 'em, and he don't get 'em
now-a-days -- nor too much of anything that's good. I don't
know what he _does_ live on, up there."
"Anything is better than those things," said her brother.
"Other people are more wise than you. Do go up and ask him,
will you, George? I hope he gets good dinners somewhere, for
it's very little of anything he cooks at that smoky little
fireplace of his. Do you ever see him bring anything in?"
"Nothing. I don't see him bring himself in, you know. But
he'll do. He'll have enough by and by, Dame Nettley. I know
what stuff he's of."
"Yes, but no stuff'll last without help," said Mrs. Nettley,
taking her cakes off the griddle and piling them up carefully.
"Now I'm all ready, George, and you're standing there -- it's
always the way -- and before you can mount those three pair of
stairs and down again, these'll be cold. Do go, George; Mr.
Landholm likes his cakes hot -- I'll have another plateful
ready before you'll be here; and then they're good for nothing
but to throw away."
"That's what I think," said Mr. Inchbald; "but I'll bring him
down if I can, to do what you like with 'em -- only I must see
first what this knocking wants at the front door."
"And left this one open too!" -- said Mrs. Nettley, -- "and now
the whole house'll be full of smoke and everything -- Well! -- I
might as well not ha' put this griddleful on." --
But the door having refused to latch, gave Mrs. Nettley a
chance to hear what was going on. She stood, slice in hand,
listening. Some unaccustomed tones came to her ear -- then Mr.
Inchbald's round hearty voice, saying,
"Yes sir -- he is here -- he is at home."
"I'd like to see him --"
And then the sounds of scraping feet entering the house.
"I'd like to go somewheres that I could see a fire, too," said
the strange voice. "Ben ridin' all night, and got to set off
again, you see, directly."
And Mrs. Nettley turned her cakes in a great hurry, as her
brother pushed open the door and let the intruder in.
He took off his hat as he came, shewing a head that had seen
some sixty winters, thinly dressed with yellow hair but not at
all grey. The face was strong and Yankee-marked with
shrewdness and reserve. His hat was wet and his shoulders,
which had no protection of an overcoat.
"Do you wish to see Mr. Landholm in his room?" said Mr.
Inchbald. "He's just coming down to breakfast."
"That'll do as well," said the stranger nodding. "And stop --
you may give him this -- maybe he'd as lieve have it up there."
Mr. Inchbald looked at the letter handed him, the outside of
which at least told no tales; but his sister with a woman's
quick instinct had already asked,
"Is anything the matter?"
"Matter?" -- said the stranger, -- "well, yes. -- He's wanted to
hum."
Both brother and sister stood now forgetting everything, both
saying in a breath,
"Wanted, what for?"
"Well -- there's sickness --"
"His father?"
"No, his mother."
Mrs. Nettley threw down her slice and ran out of the room. Mr.
Inchbald turned away slowly in the other direction. The
stranger, left alone, took a knife from the table and dished
the neglected cakes, and sat down to dry himself between them
and the coffee.
Mr. Inchbald slowly mounted the stairs to Winthrop's door, met
the pleasant face that met him there, and gave the letter.
"I was coming to ask you down to breakfast with us, Mr.
Landholm; but somebody has just come with that for you, and
wishes you to have it at once."
The pleasant face grew grave, and the seal was broken, and the
letter unfolded. It was a folio half sheet, of coarse
yellowish paper, near the upper end of which a very few lines
were irregularly written.
"My dear son
"It is with great pain I write to tell you that you must leave
all and hasten home if you would see your mother. Friend
Underhill will take this to you, and your shortest way will
be, probably, to hire a horse in M. and travel night and day;
as the time of the boat is uncertain and the stage does not
make very good time -- Her illness has been so short that we
did not know it was necessary to alarm you before. My dear
son, come without delay --
"Your father,
"W. Landholm."
Mr. Inchbald watched the face and manner of his friend as he
read, and after he read, these few words, -- but the one
expressed only gravity, the other, action. Mr. Inchbald felt
he could do nothing, and slowly went down stairs again to Mr.
Underhill. He found him still over the fire between the cakes
and the coffee. But Mr. Inchbald totally forgot to be
hospitable, and not a word was said till Winthrop came in and
he and the letter-bringer had wrung each other's hand, with a
brief 'how d' ye do.'
"How did you leave them, Mr. Underhill?"
"Well -- they were wantin' you pretty bad --"
"Did _she_ send for me?"
"Well -- no -- I guess not," said the other with something of
hesitancy, or of consideration, in his speech. Winthrop stood
silent a moment.
"I shall take horse immediately. You will go -- how?"
"May as well ride along with you," said Mr. Underhill,
settling his coat. "I'm wet -- a trifle -- but may as well ride
it off as any way. Start now?"
"Have you breakfasted?"
"Well -- no, I hain't had time, you see -- I come straight to
you."
"Mr. Inchbald, I must go to the office a few minutes -- will
you give my friend a mouthful?"
"But yourself, Mr. Landholm?"
"I have had breakfast."
Mr. Inchbald did his duty as host then; but though his guest
used despatch, the 'mouthful' was hardly a hungry man's
breakfast when Winthrop was back again. In a few minutes more
the two were mounted and on their way up the right bank of the
river.
They rode silently. At least if Mr. Underhill's wonted
talkativeness found vent at all, it was more than Winthrop was
able ever to recollect. He could remember nothing of the ride
but his own thoughts; and it seemed to him afterwards that
they must have been stunning as well as deafening; so vague
and so blended was the impression of them mixed up with the
impression of everything else. It was what Mr. Underhill
called 'falling weather'; the rain dropped lightly, or by
turns changing to mist hung over the river and wreathed itself
about the hills, and often stood across his path; as if to bid
the eye turn inward, for space to range without it might not
have. And passing all the other journeys he had made up and
down that road, some of them on horseback as he was now,
Winthrop's thoughts went back to that first one, when through
ill weather and discouragement he had left the home he was now
seeking, to enter upon his great-world career. Why did they
so? He had been that road in the rain since; he had been there
in all weathers; he had been there often with as desponding a
heart as brought him down that first time; which indeed did
not despond at all then, though it felt the weight of life's
undertakings and drawbacks. And the warm rain, and yellow,
sun-coloured mist of this April day, had no likeness to the
cold, pitiless, pelting December storm. Yet passing all the
times between, his mind went back constantly to that first
one. He felt over again, though as in a dream, its steps of
loneliness and heart-sinking -- its misty looking forward -- and
most especially that Bible word '_Now_' -- which his little
sister's finger had pointed out to him. He remembered how
constantly that day it came back to him in everything he
looked at, -- from the hills, from the river, from the beat of
the horses' hoofs, from the falling rain. 'Now' -- 'now' -- he
remembered how he had felt it that day; he had almost
forgotten it since; but now it came up again to his mind as if
that day had been but yesterday. What brought it there? Was it
the unrecognized, unallowed sense, that the one of all the
world who most longed to have him obey that word, might be to-
day beyond seeing him obey it -- for ever? Was it possibly,
that passing over the bridge of Mirza's vision he suddenly saw
himself by the side of one of the open trap-doors, and felt
that some stay, some security he needed, before his own foot
should open one for itself? He did not ask; he did not try to
order the confused sweep of feeling which for the time passed
over him; one dread idea for the time held mastery of all
others, and kept that day's ride all on the edge of that open
trap-door. Whose foot had gone down there? -- And under that
thought, -- woven in with the various tapestry of shower and
sunshine, meadow and hillside, that clothed his day's journey
to the sense, -- were the images of that day in December -- that
final leaving of home and his mother, that rainy cold ride on
the stage-coach, Winnie's open Bible, and the 'Now,' to which
her finger, his mother's prayers, and his own conscience, had
pointed all the day long.
It made no difference, that as they went on, this April day
changed from rain and mist to the most brilliant sunshine. The
mists rolled away, down the river and along the gulleys of the
mountains; the clouds scattered from off the blue sky, which
looked down clear, fair, and soft, as if Mirza's bridge were
never under it. The little puddles of water sparkled in the
sunshine and reflected the blue; the roads made haste to dry;
the softest of spring airs wafted down from the hill-sides a
spicy remembrance of budding shoots and the drawn-out
sweetness of pine and fir and hemlock and cedar. The day grew
sultrily warm. But though sunlight and spring winds carried
their tokens to memory's gates and left them there, they were
taken no note of at the time, by one traveller, and the other
had no mental apparatus fine enough to gather them up.
He had feeling or delicacy enough of another kind, however, to
keep him quiet. He sometimes looked at Winthrop; never spoke
to him. Almost never; if he spoke at all, it was in some aside
or counsel-taking with himself about the weather, the way, or
the prospect and management of the farming along the river.
They stopped only to bait or to rest their horses; even at
those times Mr. Underhill restrained himself not only from
talking to Winthrop but from talking before him; and except
when his companion was at a distance, kept as quiet as he.
Winthrop asked no questions.
The road grew hilly, and in some places rough, trying to the
horses; and by the time they were fairly among the mountain
land that stood down far south from Wut-a-qut-o, the sun was
nearing the fair broken horizon line of the western shore. The
miles were long now, when they were no longer many; the road
was more and more steep and difficult; the horses weary. The
sun travelled faster than they did. A gentler sunlight never
lay in spring-time upon those hills and river; it made the
bitter turmoil and dread of the way seem the more harsh and
ungentle. Their last stopping-place was at Cowslip's Mill -- on
the spot where seven years before, Winthrop had met the stage-
coach and its consignment of ladies.
"The horses must have a minute here -- and a bite," said Mr.
Underhill letting himself slowly down from his beast; -- "lose
no time by it."
For a change of posture Winthrop threw himself off, and stood
leaning on the saddle, while his travelling companion and Mr.
Cowslip came up the rise bringing water and food to the
horses. No more than a grave nod was exchanged between
Winthrop and his old neighbour; neither said one word; and as
soon as the buckets were empty the travellers were on their
way again.
It was but a little way now. The sun had gone behind the
mountain, the wind had died, the perfect stillness and
loveliness of evening light was over hill and river and the
home land, as the riders came out from the woods upon the foot
of the bay and saw it all before them. A cloudless sky, -- the
white clear western light where the sun had been, -- the bright
sleeping water, -- the sweet lights and shades on Wut-a-qut-o
and its neighbour hills, the lower and darker promontory
throwing itself across the landscape; and from one spot, that
half-seen centre of the picture, the little brown speck on
Shah-wee-tah, -- a thin, thin wreath of smoke slowly went up.
Winthrop for one moment looked, and then rode on sharply and
Mr. Underhill was fain to bear him company. They had rounded
the bay -- they had ridden over the promontory neck -- they were
within a little of home, -- when Winthrop suddenly drew bridle.
Mr. Underhill stopped. Winthrop turned towards him, and asked
the question not asked till then.
"How is it at home, Mr. Underhill?"
And Mr. Underhill without looking at him, answered in the same
tones, a moment of pause between,
"She's gone."
Winthrop's horse carried him slowly forward; Mr. Underhill's
was seen no more that night -- unless by Mr. Cowslip and his
son.
Slowly Winthrop's horse carried him forward -- but little time
then was needed to bring him round to the back of the house,
at the kitchen door, whither the horse-path led. It was
twilight now; the air was full of the perfume of cedars and
pines, -- the clear white light shone in the west yet. Winthrop
did not see it. He only saw that there was no light in the
windows. And that curl of thin smoke was the only thing he had
seen stirring about the house. He got off his horse and went
into the kitchen.
There was light enough to see who met him there. It was his
father. There was hardly light to see faces; but Mr. Landholm
laid both hands on his son's shoulders, saying,
"My dear boy! -- it's all over! --"
And Winthrop laid his face on his father's breast, and for a
few breaths, sobbed, as he had not done since -- since his
childish eyes had found hiding-place on that other breast that
could rest them no more.
It was but a few minutes; -- and manly sorrow had given way and
taken again its quiet self-control; once and for ever. The
father and son wrung each other's hands, the mute speech of
hand to hand telling of mutual suffering and endurance, and
affection, -- all that could be told; and then after the pause
of a minute; Winthrop moved on towards the family room, asking
softly, "Is she here?" -- But his father led him through, to
the seldom-used east-room.
Asahel was there; but he neither spoke nor stirred. And old
Karen was there, moving about on some trifling errand of duty;
but her quick nature was under less government; it did not
bear the sight of Winthrop. Dropping or forgetting what she
was about, she came towards him with a bursting cry of
feeling, half for herself, half sympathetic; and with the
freedom of old acquaintance and affection and common grief,
laid her shrivelled black hand on his shoulder and looked up
into his face, saying, almost as his father had done, but with
streaming eyes and quivering lips,
"My dear son! -- she has gone! --"
Winthrop took the hand in his and gave it a moment's pressure,
and then saying very gently but in a way that was obeyed, "Be
quiet Karen," -- he passed her and stood at his mother's
bedside.
She was there -- lying quietly in her last sleep. Herself and
not another. All of her that _could_ write and leave its
character on features of clay, was shewn there still -- in its
beauty. The brow yet spoke the calm good sense which had
always reigned beneath it; the lines of toil were on the
cheek; the mouth had its old mingling of patience and hope and
firm dignity -- the dignity of meek assurance which looked both
to the present and the future. It was there now, unchanged,
unlessened; Winthrop read it; that as she had lived, so she
had died, in sure expectation of 'the rest that remaineth.'
Herself and no other! -- ay! that came home too in another
sense, with its hard stern reality, pressing home upon the
heart and brain, till it would have seemed that nature could
not bear it and must give way. But it did not. Winthrop stood
and looked, fixedly and long, so fixedly that no one cared to
interrupt him, but so calmly in his deep gravity that the
standers-by were rather awed than distressed. And at last when
he turned away and Asahel threw himself forward upon his neck,
Winthrop's manner was as firm as it was kind; though he left
them all then and forbade Asahel to follow him.
"The Lord bless him!" said Karen, loosing her tongue then and
giving her tears leave at the same time. "And surely the Lord
has blessed him, or he wouldn't ha' borne up so. She won't
lose that one of her childr'n -- she won't, no she won't! -- I
know she won't! --"
"Where is Winnie, Karen?" said Asahel suddenly.
"Poor soul! -- I dun know," said Karen; -- "she was afeard to
see the Governor come home, and dursn't stop nowheres -- I dun
know where she's hid. -- The Lord bless him! nobody needn't ha'
feared him. He's her own boy -- aint he her own boy! --"
Asahel went out to seek for his little sister, but his search
was in vain. She was not to be seen nor heard of. Neither did
Winthrop come to the sorrowful gathering which the remnant of
the family made round the supper-table. _In_ the house he was
not; and wherever he was out of the house, he was beyond
reach.
"Could they have gone away together?" said Asahel.
"No!" said his father.
"They didn't," said Clam. "I see him go off by himself."
"Which way?"
"Off among the trees," said Clam.
"Which way?" said Mr. Landholm.
"His back was to the house, and he was goin' off towards the
river some place -- I guess he didn't want no one to foller
him."
"There aint no wet nor cold to hurt him," said Karen.
There was not; but they missed him.
And the house had been quiet, very quiet, for long after
supper-time, when softly and cautiously one of the missing
ones opened the door of the east-room and half came in. Only
Karen sat there at the foot of the bed. Winnie came in and
came up to her.
"He's not here, darlin'," said the old woman, -- "and ye needn't
ha' started from him. -- O cold face, and white face! -- what
ha' you done with yourself, Winnie, to run away from him so?
Ye needn't ha' feared him. Poor lamb! -- poor white lamb! --"
The girl sat down on the floor and laid her face on Karen's
lap, where the still tears ran very fast.
"Poor white lamb!" said the old woman, tenderly laying her
wrinkled hand on Winnie's fair hair, -- "Ye haven't eat a crumb
-- Karen'll fetch you a bit? -- ye'll faint by the way --"
Winnie shook her head. "No -- no."
"What did you run away for?" Karen went on. "Ye run away from
your best comfort -- but the Lord's help, Winnie; -- he's the
strongest of us all."
But something in that speech, Karen could not divine what,
made Winnie sob convulsively; and she thought best to give up
her attempts at counsel or comforting.
The wearied and weakened child must have needed both, for she
wept unceasingly on Karen's knees till late in the night; and
then in sheer weariness the heavy eyelids closed upon the
tears that were yet ready to come. She slumbered, with her
head still on Karen's lap.
"Poor lamb!" said Karen when she found it out, bending over to
look at her, -- "poor lamb! -- she'll die of this if the
Governor can't help her, -- and she the Lord's child too. --
Maybe best, poor child! -- maybe best! -- 'Little traveller
Zion-ward' -- I wish we were all up at those gates, O Lord! --"
The last words were spoken with a heavy sigh, and then the old
woman changed her tone.
"Winnie! -- Winnie! -- go to bed -- go to bed! Your mother'd say
it if she was here."
Winnie raised her head and opened her eyes, and Karen
repeating her admonition in the same key, the child got up and
went mechanically out of the room, as if to obey it.
It was by this time very late in the night; the rest of the
inmates of the house had long been asleep. No lights were
burning except in the room she had left. But opening the door
of the kitchen, through which her way lay to her own room,
Winnie found there was a glimmer from the fire, which usually
was covered up close; and coming further into the room, she
saw some one stretched at full length upon the floor at the
fireside. Another step, and Winnie knew it was Winthrop. He
was asleep, his head resting on a rolled-up cloak against the
jamb. Winnie's tears sprang forth again, but she would not
waken him. She kneeled down by his side, to look at him, as
well as the faint fireglow would let her, and to weep over
him; but her strength was worn out. It refused even weeping;
and after a few minutes, nestling down as close to him as she
could get, she laid one arm and her head upon his breast and
went to sleep too. More peacefully and quietly than she had
slept for several nights.
The glimmer from the fire-light died quite away, and only the
bright stars kept watch over them. The moon was not where she
could look in at those north or east kitchen windows. But by
degrees the fair April night changed. Clouds gathered
themselves up from all quarters of the horizon, till they
covered the sky; the faces of the stars were hid; thunder
began to roll along among the hills, and bright incessant
flashes of white lightning kept the room in a glare. The
violence of the storm did not come over Shah-wee-tah, but it
was more than enough to rouse Winthrop, whose sleep was not so
deep as his little sister's. And when Winnie did come to her
consciousness she found herself lifted from the floor and on
her brother's lap; he half sitting up; his arms round her, and
her head still on his breast. Her first movement of awakening
was to change her position and throw her arms around his neck.
"Winnie --" he said gently.
The flood-gates burst then, and her heart poured itself out,
her head alternately nestling in his neck and raised up to
kiss his face, and her arms straining him with nervous
eagerness.
"O Winthrop! -- O Winthrop! -- O dear Winthrop! --" was the cry,
as fast as sobs and kisses would let her.
"Winnie --" said her brother again.
"O Winthrop! -- why didn't you come!"
He did not answer that, except by the heaving breast which
poor Winnie could not feel.
"I am here now, dear Winnie."
"O Winthrop! --" Winnie hesitated, and the burden of her heart
would burst forth, -- "why aren't you a Christian! --"
It was said with a most bitter rush of tears, as if she felt
that the most precious thing she had, lacked of preciousness;
that her most sure support needed a foundation. But when a
minute had stilled the tears, and she could hear, she heard
him say, very calmly,
"I am one, Winnie."
Her tears ceased absolutely on his shoulder, and Winnie was
for a moment motionless. Then as he did not speak again, she
unclasped her arms and drew back her head to look at him. The
constant flashes of light gave her chance enough.
"You heard me right," he said.
"Are you?" -- she said wistfully.
"By God's help -- this night and for ever."
Winnie brought her hands together, half clapping, half
clasping them, and then threw them to their former position
around his neck, exclaiming, --
"Oh if _she_ had known it before --!"
There was no answer to that, of words; and Winnie could not
see the sudden paleness which witnessed to the answer within.
But it came, keen as those lightning flashes, home-thrust as
the thunderbolts they witnessed to, that his 'now' had come
too late for her.
The lightnings grew fainter, and failed -- the thunder muttered
off in the distance, and ceased to be heard -- the clouds
rolled down the river and scattered away, just as the dawn was
breaking on Wut-a-qut-o. There had been nothing spoken in the
farmhouse kitchen since Winnie's last words. Winthrop was busy
with his own thoughts, which he did not tell; and Winnie had
been giving hers all the expression they could bear, in tears
and kisses and the strong clasp of her weak arm, and the
envious resting, trusting, lay of her head upon Winthrop's
shoulder and breast. When the glare of the lightning had all
gone, and the grey light was beginning to walk in at the
windows, her brother spoke to her.
"Winnie, -- you would be better in bed."
"Oh no, -- I wouldn't. -- Do you want me to go, Governor?" she
added presently.
"Not if you could rest as well here, but you want rest,
Winnie."
"I couldn't rest so well _anywhere!_" -- said Winifred
energetically.
"Then let me take the big chair and give you a chance."
He took it, and took her in his arms again, where she nestled
herself down as if she had been a child; with an action that
touchingly told him anew that she could rest so well nowhere
else.
"Governor --" she said, when her head had found its place --
"you haven't kissed me."
"I did, Winnie, -- it must have been before you were awake."
But he kissed her again; and drawing one or two long breaths,
of heart-weariness and heart-rest, Winnie went to sleep.
The grey dawn brightened rapidly; and a while after, Karen
came in. It was fair morning then. She stood by the hearth,
opposite the two, looking at them.
"Has she been here all night?" she whispered.
Winthrop nodded.
"Poor lamb! -- Ye're come in good time, Master Winthrop."
She turned and began to address herself to the long gone-out
fire in the chimney.
"What are you going to do, Karen?" he said softly.
She looked back at him, with her hand in the ashes.
"Haven't you watched to-night?"
"I've watched a many nights," she said shaking her head and
beginning again to rake for coals in the cold fireplace, --
"this aint the first. _That_ aint nothin'. I'll watch now, dear,
'till the day dawn and the shadows flee away'; -- what else
should Karen do? 'Taint much longer, and I'll be where there's
no night again. O come, sweet day! --" said the old woman
clasping her hands together as she crouched in the fireplace,
and the tears beginning to trickle down, -- "when the mother
and the childr'n'll all be together, and Karen somewheres --
and our home won't be broken up no more! --"
She raked away among the ashes with an eager trembling hand.
"Karen, --" said Winthrop softly, -- "Leave that."
"What, dear?" -- she said.
"Leave that."
"Who'll do it, dear?"
"I will."
She obeyed him, as perhaps she would have done for no one
else. Rising up, Winthrop carried his sleeping sister without
wakening her, and laid her on the bed in her own little room,
which opened out of the kitchen; then he came back and went to
work in the fireplace. Karen yielded it to him with equal
admiration and unwillingness; remarking to herself as her
relieved hands went about other business, that, "for sure,
nobody could build a fire handsomer than Mr. Winthrop"; -- and
that "he was his mother's own son, and deserved to be!"