As I Make My Adieux Mr. Philip Comes In.
When the eventful day of departure came, what with the last packing, the
searches to see that nothing should be forgotten, the awkwardness and
slowness of hands unnerved by the excitement of a great occasion, it was
high noon before I was ready to start. I stood idly in the hall, while my
aunt put final touches to my traps, my mind swinging like a pendulum
between fear that Mr. Cross, whom I was to join at Caughnawaga, would be
vexed at my delay, and genuine pain at leaving my dear home and its
inmates, now that the hour had arrived.
I had made my farewells over at my mother's house the previous day,
dutifully kissing her and all the sisters who happened to be at home, but
without much emotion on either side. Blood is thicker than water, the
adage runs. Perhaps that is why it flowed so calmly in all our Dutch veins
while we said good-by. But here in my adopted home--my true home--my heart
quivered and sank at thought of departure.
"I could not have chosen a better or safer man for you to travel with than
Jonathan Cross," Mr. Stewart was saying to me. "He does not look on all
things as I do, perhaps, for our breeding was as different as the desk is
different from the drum. But he is honest and courteous, well informed
after his way, and as like what you will be later on as two peas in a pod.
You were born for a trader, a merchant, a man of affairs; and you will be
at a good school with him."
He went on in his grave, affectionate manner, telling me in a hundred
indirect ways that I belonged to the useful rather than to the ornamental
order of mankind, with never a thought in his good heart of wounding my
feelings, or of letting me know that in his inmost soul he would have
preferred me to be a soldier or an idler with race-horses and a velvet
coat. Nor did he wound me, for I had too great a love for him, and yet
felt too thorough a knowledge of myself to allow the two to clash. I
listened silently, with tears almost ready at my eyes, but with thoughts
vagrantly straying from his words to the garden outside.
Tulp was to go with me, and his parents and kin were filling the air with
advice and lamentations in about equal measure, and all in the major key.
Their shouts and wailing--they could not have made more ado if he had just
been sold to Jamaica--came through the open door. It was not of this din I
thought, though, nor of the cart which the negroes, while they wept, were
piling high with my goods, and which I could see in the highway beyond.
I was thinking of Daisy, my sweet sister, who had gone into the garden to
gather a nosegay for me.
Through the door I could see her among the bushes, her lithe form bending
in the quest of blossoms. Were it midsummer, I thought, and the garden
filled with the whole season's wealth of flowers, it could hold nothing
more beautiful than she. Perhaps there was some shadow of my moody fit,
the evening after the dinner at the Hall, remaining to sadden my thoughts
of parting from her. I cannot tell. I only know that they were indeed sad
thoughts. I caught myself wondering if she would miss me much--this dear
girl who had known no life in which I had not had daily share. Yes, the
tears _were_ coming, I felt. I wrung my good old patron's hand, and turned
my head away.
There came a clattering of hoofs on the road and the sound of male voices.
Tulp ran in agape with the tidings that Sir John and a strange gentleman
had ridden up, and desired to see Mr. Stewart. We at once walked out to
the garden, a little relieved perhaps by the interruption.
Both visitors had had time to alight and leave their horses outside the
wall. The younger Johnson stood in the centre path of the garden,
presenting his companion to Daisy, who, surprised at her task, and with
her back to us, was courtesying. Even to the nape of her neck she
was blushing.
There was enough for her to blush at. The stranger was bowing very low,
putting one hand up to his breast. With the other he had taken her fingers
and raised them formally to his lips. This was not a custom in our parts.
Sir William did it now and then on state occasions, but young men,
particularly strangers, did not.
As we advanced, this gallant morning-caller drew himself up and turned
toward us. You may be sure I looked him over attentively.
I have seen few handsomer young men. In a way, so far as light hair, blue
eyes, ruddy and regular face went, he was not unlike Sir John. But he was
much taller, and his neck and shoulders were squared proudly--a trick
Johnson never learned. The fine effect of his figure was enhanced by a
fawn-colored top-coat, with a graceful little cape falling over the
shoulders. His clothes beneath, from the garnet coat with mother-of-pearl
buttons down to his shining Hessians, all fitted him as if he had been run
into them as into a mould. He held his hat, a glossy sugar-loaf beaver, in
one hand, along with whip and gloves. The other hand, white and shapely in
its ruffles, he stretched out now toward Mr. Stewart with a free,
pleasant gesture.
"With my father's oldest friend," he said, "I must not wait for ceremony.
I am Philip Cross, from England, and I hope you will be my friend, sir,
now that my father is gone."
That this speech found instant favor need not be doubted. Mr. Stewart
shook him again and again by the hand, and warmly bade him welcome to the
Valley and the Cedars a dozen times in as many breaths. Young Cross
managed to explain between these cordial ejaculations, that he had
journeyed up from New York with the youthful Stephen Watts--to whose
sister Sir John was already betrothed; that they had reached Guy Park the
previous evening; that Watts was too wearied this morning to think of
stirring out, but that hardly illness itself could have prevented him,
Cross, from promptly paying his respects to his father's ancient comrade.
The young man spoke easily and fluently, looking Mr. Stewart frankly in
the eye, with smiling sincerity in glance and tone. He went on:
"How changed everything is roundabout!--all save you, who look scarcely
older or less strong. When I was here as a boy it was winter, cold and
bleak. There was a stockade surrounded by wilderness then, I remember, and
a log-house hardly bigger than the fireplace inside it. Where we stand now
the ground was covered with brush and chips, half hidden by snow.
Now--_presto!_ there is a mansion in the midst of fields, and a garden
neatly made, and"--turning with a bow to Daisy--"a fair mistress for them
all, who would adorn any palace or park in Europe, and whom I remember as
a frightened little baby, with stockings either one of which would have
held her entire."
"I saw the cart laden outside," put in Sir John, "and fancied perhaps we
should miss you."
"Why, no," said Mr. Stewart; "I had forgotten for the moment that this was
a house of mourning. Douw is starting to the Lake country this very day.
Mr. Cross, you must remember my boy, my Douw?"
The young Englishman turned toward me, as I was indicated by Mr. Stewart's
gesture. He looked me over briefly, with a half-smile about his eyes,
nodded to me, and said:
"You were the Dutch boy with the apron, weren't you?"
I assented by a sign of the head, as slight as I could politely make it.
"Oh, yes, I recall you quite distinctly. I used to make my brother Digby
laugh by telling about your aprons. He made quite a good picture of you in
one of them, drawn from my descriptions. We had a fort of snow, too, did
we not? and I beat you, or you me, I forget which. I got snow down the
back of my neck, I know, and shivered all the way to the fort."
He turned lightly at this to Mr. Stewart, and began conversation again. I
went over to where Daisy stood, by the edge of the flower-bed.
"I must go now, dear sister," I said. The words were choking me.
We walked slowly to the house, she and I. When I had said good-by to my
aunt, and gathered together my hat, coats, and the like, I stood
speechless, looking at Daisy. The moment was here, and I had no word for
it which did not seem a mockery.
She raised herself on tiptoe to be kissed. "Good-by, big brother," she
said, softly. "Come back to us well and strong, and altogether homesick,
won't you? It will not be like home, without you, to either of us."
And so the farewells were all made, and I stood in the road prepared to
mount. Tulp was already on the cart, along with another negro who was to
bring back my horse and the vehicle after we had embarked in the boats.
There was nothing more to say--time pressed--yet I lingered dumb and
irresolute. At the moment I seemed to be exchanging everything for
nothing--committing domestic suicide. I looked at them both, the girl and
the old man, with the gloomy thought that I might never lay eyes on them
again. I dare say I wore my grief upon my face, for Mr. Stewart tried
cheerily to hearten me with, "Courage, lad! We shall all be waiting for
you, rejoiced to welcome you back safe and sound."
Daisy came to me now again, as I put my hand on the pommel, and pinned
upon my lapel some of the pale blue blossoms she had gathered.
"There's 'rosemary for remembrance,'" she murmured. "Poor Ophelia could
scarce have been sadder than we feel, Douw, at your going."
"And may I be decorated too--for remembrance' sake?" asked handsome young
Philip Cross, gayly.
"Surely, sir," the maiden answered, with a smile of sweet sorrowfulness.
"You have a rightful part in the old memories--in a sense, perhaps, the
greatest part of all."
"Ay, you two were friends before ever you came to us, dear," said Mr.
Stewart.
So as I rode away, with smarting eyes and a heart weighing like lead, my
last picture of the good old home was of Daisy fastening flowers on the
young Englishman's breast, just as she had put these of mine in
their place.