RUTH ASHTON'S INTRODUCTION TO AUNT DEBIE RUTH'S DILEMMA.
As there was a lull in the conversation which we reported in the
last chapter, after Mrs. Gurney had finished speaking, she thought
it would be a favorable opportunity to introduce Mrs. Ashton to
Aunt Debie; so she spoke to the former, and they walked over to
the old lady's chair. Mrs. Gurney then took Mrs. Ashton's hand and
placed it in the old lady's, saying, as she did so: "Aunt Debie,
this is Mrs. Ashton, of whom thee has heard us speak!"
"Happy to meet with thee, I am sure." said Aunt Debie.
"What is thy fust name?"
"Ruth," answered Mrs. Ashton.
"That is a good Script'al name. May thee, like thy namesake, be
worthy of the Lord's blessing."
"What is thy husband's name?"
"Richard," answered Mrs. Ashton.
"And how many children has thee got?"
"We have three, a boy and two girls," and then, as if in
anticipation of the old lady's next question, she added: "Their
names are Edward, Alice Maud, and Mary; Edward is fourteen, Alice
Maud is twelve, and Mary is four, she is our baby."
"Thee had a long rest between thy second and third," remarked Aunt
Debie. "Did thee lose any?"
Ruth Ashton's face flushed slightly, for Aunt Debie was like a new
revelation to her; she had never met anyone like her before, but
she good-naturedly answered "No" to her question.
Mrs. Gurney now told Ruth she had better leave the old lady, for
she was very inquisitive, and added, by way of explanation: "She
has been blind and deaf so long that she seems to have forgotten
that some of her questions are hardly in keeping with good
manners;" and, she continued, "in her youth, where she was raised,
the habits and customs were not as they are here at the present.
Then, as she cannot see nor hear, she is naturally more
inquisitive."
Mrs. Ashton, who began to be alarmed, would gladly have left the
old lady; but, as the latter held her by the hand, she thought it
would be rude to hastily withdraw.
"It is a blessing thee has not had to pass through that sore
trial," she said. "I lost a little babe more than sixty years ago,
and I see its sweet little face now just as plainly as if it were
only yesterday that it was taken from me; and often in my dreams
it comes to me, and again I hear it prattle and crow as it did in
the days of the long, long ago. But God was good to me in taking
it away; for, while all the rest of my children are now getting
old and gray, in my memory that sweet little babe is ever young.
James and Sarah have had a harder trial. If God in His mercy,
wisdom, and love, had seen it was for the better to have taken
their children when they were young, it would not have been so
hard for them to bear; but when they were let to grow up and then
taken, leaving them alone in their age, the stroke is very hard
indeed. But they--thank God--know where to go for consolation, and
have learned to say: 'The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away;
blessed be the name of the Lord.'" And then, addressing Ruth, she
said: "Thee ought to be very thankful that God hath not made thee
to pass through this fire."
"I am more thankful than I can find words to express," said Ruth,
as the tears streamed from her eyes, as they also did from the
eyes of every person in the room, for, they were all strangely
moved by Aunt Debie's pathos.
"But thee has had thine own troubles, has thee not?" and Aunt
Debie asked the question significantly, as if she referred to a
particular trouble.
Mrs. Gurney now saw what she feared was coming, and she told Ruth
it would be prudent to withdraw, quietly, but as quickly as
possible.
Mrs. Gurney was secretly condemning herself for what she now felt
was to say the least, imprudence; for in a conversation she had
had with Aunt Debie she gave her an outline of the life of Richard
and Ruth Ashton, and she was now sure that the old lady was about
to refer to it. In fact, she had unfolded to her, almost in full,
the benevolent schemes they had formed for the purpose of
reforming Richard Ashton.
Ruth, in answer to Aunt Debie's question, replied: "Yes, I have
had to pass through troubles. I suppose," she added, "God has seen
that it was better for me that I should have my share, the same as
others. It would not do for any of us to be basking always in the
sunlight and experiencing nothing but pleasure; so God takes us
down in the shadow and brings sorrow upon us, that we can more
fully sympathize with our suffering fellow-creatures, and also be
made riper for heaven."
Ruth now gently withdrew her hand, and, bending down, said:
"Please excuse me, Aunt Debie, Mrs. Gurney has called me into the
conservatory."
"'Pears to me Martha is in a hurry to get thee away"--and she spoke
with some asperity of tone. "But I was going to say that I heard
thee has passed through particular trouble--that thy husband had
been a drinker, and that he had brought thee and thy children to
poverty. This must have caused thee much sufferin'; and the wust
of it is, if a man becomes a drinker, though he does break off he
is almost sartan to begin again. He never abused thee and thy
children, did he, Ruth?"
Ruth's pale face flushed red as she quickly withdrew. She did not
know what to say in the way of reply, and therefore left the room
as speedily as possible; but though she did, the tones of Aunt
Debie's voice fell distinctly upon her ear as, in her innocence,
she garrulously gave expression to her fears as to the woe that
was yet to come. "I pity the poor thing," she said; "for thee jest
mind if he does not take to drink again, such men scarcely ever
fail to do so. He will likely drink himself to death, and then she
will be a widow and her children orphans in a strange land. God
help the poor thing!'"
Mrs. Gurney closed the door to shut out the sound, but Ruth had
heard the ominous words, and they made her feel wretched. She was
not angry with Aunt Debie, for she was broad enough to understand,
after Mrs. Gurney's explanation, that what would be inquisitive
rudeness in another was to be excused in her because of her early
environments and her latter afflictions. The major portion of her
life had been passed in a primitive community, where, though its
inhabitants were as pure as they were simple and unsophisticated,
they had no conception of that fine sense of delicacy which is the
product of higher culture, and keeps one from prying into the
affairs of others. She was, in fact, an exaggerated specimen of
those primitive times, for her afflictions had preserved her from
the influences which had wrought such a transformation on those
around her. Indeed, if she, at the time of which we are writing,
could have had her hearing and her sight restored, the world would
have appeared as strange to her as it did to Rip Van Winkle after
his twenty years' sleep.
But though, as we have intimated, Ruth Ashton could, at least to
some extent, excuse the old lady, when she understood the
circumstances, this did not keep what she said from exerting such
an influence upon her, for the time being, as to entirely destroy
all peace of mind, and to cause the former to wish she had not
accepted Mrs. Gurney's invitation.
In a short time after her interview with Aunt Debie, Enoch broke
his long silence by giving expression to the opinion that "it was
time to go hum." The female members of the party acquiescing, they
quietly departed. And as her husband called on his way home from
the shop to escort her, Ruth, shortly after, bade her kind host
and hostess good-night.
Her first association with the rural inhabitants of Canada was
not of the most pleasing character, but yet they possessed
characteristics she could not help admiring; for, while there was
an entire absence of that delicate sensibility which would have
kept them from so rudely endeavoring to satisfy their curiosity,
there was exhibited, in the short time she was in their company,
so much shrewdness, common sense, and, added to this, such an
inherent hatred of shams, of vice and villany, and such a love for
the true, the pure, and the good, that she formed an opinion in
regard to them a narrower person, under the circumstances, would
be incapable of doing.
That night she slept but little, and the little she did was
broken, fitful, and disturbed by hideous dreams, in which her
husband and children, Aunt Debie, and herself, were all mixed up
in horrible confusion; and when awake she found the couplet of the
poet Campbell running through her mind--
"The sunset of life gives me mystical lore,
And coming events cast their shadows before"
the association of ideas in her mind quite involuntarily, as far
as her will-power was concerned, linking this creation of the poet
with Aunt Debie's ominous utterances. She finally quietly left the
side of her sleeping husband, and knelt before the Lord in prayer;
and then, returning to bed, soon fell into a peaceful slumber.