COUNTRY NEIGHBORS.
Blest those abodes where want and pain repair
And every stranger finds a ready chair;
Blest be those feasts, with joyous plenty crowned,
Where all the blooming family around,
Laugh at the jests or pranks that never fail,
Or sigh with pity at some mournful tale,
Or press the weary traveler to his food,
And feel the luxury of doing good.
_—Goldsmith._
Alice was almost in solitary confinement in the cold, stern prison of
her home, for General Garnet discouraged association with old friends,
who at least suggested the past, if they did not openly refer to it.
But there was one family, and that family the very warmest and most
steadfast among the few friends of Sinclair, from whom General Garnet
had not the will to separate his young wife—the Wylies of Yocomoco, or
Point Pleasant, as their seat was more frequently called by their
delighted visitors. Who, indeed, had the will or the power to do aught
to annoy the delightful host of Point Pleasant?
Who in all the South has not heard of Judge Jacky Wylie, still called
judge because he had once sat upon the bench, though not finding the
seat comfortable, he had abandoned it, affirming that he had “not the
heart” for the business? That was a favorite phrase of the judge, who
was always asserting that he “hadn’t the heart,” when everyone knew that
he had the largest heart in all old Maryland.
And there was his mother, a gentlewoman of the old school, without any
state about her, a Lady Bountiful of the neighborhood, without any
pretensions.
Who did not know and love old Mrs. Wylie?
How she was adored by the large, miscellaneous family Jack had gathered
together! To be sure, all Jacky’s unprovided nieces and nephews were her
grandchildren, and it was partly for love of her, to please her, to let
her gather all her second brood under her wing, that her son Jacky
collected them. Yes, she was adored by all that household of laughing
girls and roystering boys, the tide of whose love and fondness for her
was so great that it sometimes overflowed the barriers of
veneration—just as Jacky’s confidence in God sometimes swamped his
reverence!—but most of all was she idolized by the adopted son of Judge
Jacky, Ulysses Roebuck.
Next to his grandmother Ulysses loved his smallest cousin, little
Ambrosia, the only child of Judge Jacky, and the little goddess of the
whole household of grown-up and growing young men and maidens. Little
Ambrosia, named after her Uncle Ambrose, who had been the elder and only
brother of Jacky, and the favorite of his mother, but who had died in
youth. And it was to please his mother that Jacky, having no son, called
his little daughter after his brother. And it was a lovely name, too, he
thought—a lovely, tempting, caressable name! really better than one
could have hoped; for Ambrose was old-fashioned and ugly—low be it
spoken.
I think the negroes must have conceived it to be a “tempting” name, too;
for, with their inevitable fault of corrupting language, they called the
little seraph, with her charming face and sunny hair, “Miss Ambush.”
And “Marse Useless” and “Miss Ambush” were the prime favorites of the
plantation, notwithstanding, or perhaps, because of, the dare-devil,
don’t care-ishness of the former.
It was with this family, then, that General and Mrs. Garnet interchanged
frequent visits. Often the old lady, Mrs. Wylie, accompanied by little
Ambrosia and a waiting-maid, would drive up to Mount Calm in their
old-fashioned phaeton, to spend the day; or else two or three of the
girls and young men would ride up to pass an evening, and return by
starlight. And not unfrequently young Mrs. Garnet would go down with her
little Alice and pass a day and night at Point Pleasant.
There was yet another family with whom the Garnets were upon terms of
close intimacy and friendship—their next neighbors, the Hardcastles of
Hemlock Hollow, whose estate joined Mount Calm, lying immediately behind
and below it, and extending further inland. The family at the Hollow
consisted of Lionel Hardcastle, High Sheriff of the State; his only son,
Lionel, Jr., a youth of fifteen, and his nephew, Magnus, a boy of ten
years old.
Lionel Hardcastle was the only man in the county with whom General
Garnet could be said to be on terms of close intimacy. Their estates, as
I said, joined; their rank in life was upon a par, and their country
interests almost identical. They were also of the same party in
politics, of the same denomination in religion, and of like opinion upon
all common and local questions; so that there was very little to differ
about, while there was a great deal to attract them to each other in
their very opposite temperaments and characters, experiences, and mental
acquisitions.
Mrs. Garnet had always been strongly attached to the family at the
Hollow, and though there was no lady at the head of the establishment to
receive her, she continued to accept the invitations to dinner extended
to General Garnet and herself, and always accompanied him thither.
But Mrs. Garnet had her favorite among the Hardcastles—this was young
Magnus Hardcastle, the nephew, a fine, handsome, spirited, and generous
boy, devotedly fond of his beautiful neighbor, and her sweet little
girl. Very often would Mrs. Garnet take Magnus home with her to spend
several days or weeks at Mount Calm. And when he was not staying there,
still every day would the boy find his way to Mount Calm, with some
little childish love-offering to its sweet mistress. In spring it would
be a bunch of wood violets, or wild sweet-briar roses, gathered in the
thicket, and of which Alice was very fond; in summer, a little
flag-basket of wild strawberries or raspberries, which Alice loved
better than hothouse or garden fruit; in autumn, a hat full of chestnuts
and chinkapins, gathered in the forest, and hulled by himself; even in
winter the little fellow might be seen trudging on, knee-deep in snow,
with a bunch of snow-birds which he had caught in his trap for pretty
Cousin Alice, as he called Mrs. Garnet.
Very bright would grow Mrs. Garnet’s pleasant chamber when Magnus, with
his sunny smile, would break in upon the pensive lady and the little
child, and light up all the room with his gladness. Very often the lady
would open her arms to receive the joyous boy, and fold him to her bosom
in a most loving clasp, grateful for the new life and joy he ever
brought her.
Mrs. Garnet loved her own beautiful and gentle child, but it was with a
profound, earnest, almost mournful and foreboding love.
But Magnus was a perpetual day-spring of gladness and delight to her.
She could not look upon the boy without a thrill of sympathetic joy and
hope.
And so the years had passed, and Alice grew happy in their flight, until
the second trial of her life approached.