THE ROMANCE CONTINUED.
FATHER CONFESSOR--OPEN CONFESSION--THE UNREAD WILL--OLD TONEY'S
NARRATIVE--SQUIRREL SHOOTING--THE FAREWELL UNSAID--BROTHERS-IN-LAW--
FAREWELL INDEED.
When the morrow came, the clouds were weeping and the damp was dripping
from every leaf, and gloomy rifts of spongy vapor floated lazily upon
the breeze, promising a wet and very unpleasant day. These misty
periods rarely endure many hours in the autumn, but sometimes they
continue for days. The atmosphere seems half water, and its warm damp
compels close-housing, to avoid the clammy, sickly feeling met beyond
the portals. At such times, time hangs heavily, and every resource
sometimes fails to dispel the gloom and ennui consequent upon the
weather; conversation will pall; music cease to delight, and reading
weary. To stand and watch the rain through the window-panes, to lounge
from the drawing-room to your chamber, to drum with your fingers upon
the table--to beat your brain for a thought which you vainly seek to
weave into rhyme in praise of your inamorata--all is unavailing. The
rain is slow but ceaseless, and the hours are days to the unemployed
mind. We hum a tune and whistle to hurry time, but the indicating
fingers of the tediously ticking clock seems stationary, and time waits
for fair weather. The ladies love their chambers, and sleeping away the
laggard hours, do not feel the oppression of a slow, continuous, lazy
rain.
The morning has well-nigh passed, and the drawing-room is still
untenanted. The judge was busy in his office, looking over papers and
accounts, seemingly unconscious of the murky day; perhaps he had
purposely left this work for such a day--wise judge--a solitary man,
unloving, and unloved; hospitable by freaks, sordid by habit, and mean
by nature. Yet he was wise in his way; devoid of sentiment or sympathy
as a grind-stone, his wit was as sharp as his heart was cold. Absorbed
in himself, the outside world was nothing to him. He had work, gainful
work for all weathers, and therefore no feeling for those who suffered
from the weather or the world, if it cost him nothing in pence. He was
the guardian of his baby sister; but all of her he had in his heart was
a care that she should not marry, before he was ready to settle her
estate. The interest he felt in her, was his commissions for
administering her property with a legitimate gain earned in the use of
her money.
The guest of this strange man was restless, he knew not why; there were
books in abundance, and their authors' names were read over and over
again as he rummaged the book-cases he knew not for what. First one and
then another was pulled out from its companions, the title-page read
and replaced again, only to take another. Idly he was turning the pages
of one, when a voice surprised him and sweetly inquired at his elbow if
he found amusement or edification in his employment. "I must apologize
for my rudely leaving you last night. I hope I am incapable of deceit
or unnecessary concealments. I was hurt and angry, and I went away in a
passion. Yours is a gentle nature, you do not suffer your feelings to
torture and master you. I should not, but I am incapable of the effort
necessary to their control. It is best with me that they burn out, but
their very ashes lie heavily upon my heart. Our clime is a furnace, and
her children are flame, at least, strange sir, some of them are a
self-consuming flame. I feel that is my nature. Is not this an honest
confession? I could explain further in extenuation of my strange
nature. It was not my nature until it was burned into my very soul. I
am very young, but the bitterness of my experiences makes me old, at
least in feeling. But you are not my father confessor--then why do I
talk to you as to one long known? Because--perhaps--but never mind the
reason. I know my cousin has whispered something to you of me; my
situation, my nature--is it not so?"
"Ah! you would be _my_ father confessor. You must not interrogate, but
if you would know, ask your cousin."
"O! no, I could not. Is it not strange that woman will confide to the
strange man, what she will not to the kindred woman? Woman will not
sympathize with woman; she goes not to her for comfort, for sympathy,
for relief. Is this natural? Men lean on one another, women only on
man. Is this natural? Is it instinctive? or an acquired faculty? Do not
laugh at me, I am very foolish and very sad; such a day should sadden
every one. But my cousin is very cheerful, twitters and flits about
like an uncaged canary, and is as cheerful when it rains all day, as
when the sun in her glory gladdens all the earth and everything
thereon. I am almost a Natchez, for I worship the sun. How I am running
on! You are gentle and kind, are you not? You are quick,
perceptive--you have seen that I am not happy--sympathize, but do not
pity me. That is a terrible struggle between prudence and inclination.
There, now I am done--don't you think me very foolish?"
"Miss Alice--(will you allow me this familiarity?)"
"Yes, when we are alone; not before cousin or my _man_ brother." (She
almost choked with the word.) "Not before strangers--we are not
strangers when alone. You read my nature, as I do yours, and we are
not strangers when alone. It is not long acquaintance which makes
familiar friends. The mesmeric spark will do more than years of
intercommunication, where there is no congeniality--and do it in a
little precious moment. The bloody arrow we held in common was an
electric chain. I learned you at the plucking of that arrow from the
cotton bale--in your strange, wild garb; but never mind--what were you
going to say?"
"I was going to say that our acquaintance was very brief, but what I
have seen or heard, I will not tell to you or to any one. Your
imagination is magnifying your sufferings. You want a heart to confide
in. You have brothers-in-law, wise and strong men.
"That, for the whole of them," she said, as she snapped her fingers.
"Their wives are my sisters, some of them old enough to be my mother,
but they and their husbands are alike--sordid. The hope of money is
even more debasing than the hoarding. Do you understand me? I must
speak or my heart will burst. Are you a wizzard that you have so drawn
me on? Dare I speak? Is it maidenly that I should? There is a spell
upon me. Go to your chamber--there is a spy upon me; I am seen, and I
fear I have been overheard; go to your chamber--here, take this book
and read it if you never have--dinner is at hand, and after dinner--,
but let each hour provide for itself,--at dinner,--well, well, adieu."
She was in the drawing-room, and again the soft melody of
half-suppressed music, scarcely audible, yet every note distinct,
floated to his chamber, and the guest scarcely breathed that he might
hear. There was something so plaintive, so melting in the tones that
they saddened as well as delighted. How the heart can melt out at the
finger-points when touching the keys of a sweetly-toned instrument! It
is thrown to the air, and in its plaint makes sweet music of its
melancholy. Like harmonious spirits chanting in their invisibility,
making vocal the very atmosphere, it died away as though going to a
great distance, and stillness was in the whole house. He stole gently
to the door. There seated was Alice; her elbow on her instrument, and
her brow upon her hand. The bell rang for dinner. The repast is over,
and a glass of generous wine sent the rose to the cheeks of Alice, but
enlivened not her eye. Her heart was sad: the eye spoke it but too
plainly, and she looked beautiful beyond comparison. The eye of the
stranger was rivetted upon that drooping lid and more than melancholy
brow.
His situation was a painful one. More than once had he caught the
quick, suspicious glance of the judge flash upon him. He was becoming
an object of interest to more than one in the house; but how different
that interest! How at antipodes the motives of that interest! He knew
too much, and yet he wanted to know more. He was left alone in the
drawing-room with the timid, modest little cousin. It rained on, and
the weather seemed melancholy, and their feelings were in unison with
the weather.
"I shall leave, I believe, miss, as soon as the rain will permit. I
presume I may go down to the city without fear."
"You will find it but a sorry place, sir. All the hotels are closed and
everybody is out of town save the physicians, and the poor who are
unable to get away. The gloom of the desolated place is enough to craze
any one. I hope you do not find your stay disagreeable in this house?"
"I will not attempt to deceive you, miss. I cannot say why; but I feel
uncomfortable--not at my ease. It were needless for me to repeat it; I
am sure you know the cause."
"Perhaps I do, sir; and still I cannot see in that sufficient cause for
your going away. Perhaps, sir, we are not thinking of the same cause,"
she said with a mischievous twinkle in her eye.
"I particularly allude to what you yourself communicated to me. I
perceive Miss Alice is very unhappy, and I also am apprehensive that I
may in some way be the cause of this."
"I will tell you, sir, any special attention on your part to Alice will
enrage her brother. From motives known to himself, he is very much
opposed to her marrying any one. His reasons as given are that she is
so peculiar in her disposition that she would only increase her own
misery in making her husband miserable, which her eccentric nature
would certainly insure. I have heard that he has sometimes had a
thought of carrying her to an asylum for the insane. The world,
however, is not charitable enough to believe this the true reason. The
judge is very grasping, and he has in his hands Alice's fortune. Some
of his own family suppose he desires the use of it as long as possible.
There are many hard things said of him in relation to his influencing
his mother to leave him the lion's share of her estate. This very home
was intended for Alice, and though he had not spoken to his mother for
years, in her last hours he came with a prepared will and insisted on
her signing it. She feared him (most people do) and affixed her name to
the fatal document, which report says was never read to her. After that
she could not bear the presence of Alice, saying in her delirium: 'My
poor baby will hate me; I have turned her from her home.' Alice has
learned all this, and she has upbraided him with his conduct; for once
provoked she does not even fear him."
"Why do not her brothers-in-law inquire into this? They are equally
interested in the matter it seems to me."
"Ah, sir! they are hoping that he may do them justice in his will. I am
sure this is the understanding with at least one of them, and neither
of them will hazard a loss to protect the rights of Alice. Large
expectations are strong inducements to selfishness. I am disclosing
family matters, sir; but I have done so from a good motive. It is but
half disclosed to you; but the rest I must not tell. You are not so
dull as not from what I have said to be able to shape your conduct.
Alice is coming."
The rain had ceased, and for two days the genial sun had drank up the
moisture from the land, which underfoot was dry again. The autumn had
come, and the earth groaned with the rich products of this favored
land. The cotton-fields were whitening, and the yellow corn's pendant
ears hung heavily from their supporting stocks. Fat cattle in the shade
of the great trees switched away the teasing flies as they lazily
ruminated. The crows were cawing and stealing from their bursting
shells the rich pecan nuts, and the black-birds flew in great flocks
over the fields. In the hickory-woods the gray squirrel leaped from
tree to tree, hunting for, and storing away for winter's use, his store
of nuts and acorns, or running along the rail-fence to find a
hiding-place when frightened from his thieving in the cornfields. The
quail whistled for his truant mate in the yellow stubble, and the
carrion-bird--black and disgusting--wheeled in circles, lazily, high up
in the blue above. There was in everything the appearance of
satisfaction; abundance was everywhere, and the yellowing of the leaves
and the smoky horizon told that the year was waning into winter.
Under the influences of the scene and the season the visitor of the
judge was sober and reflective as he strolled through the woods, gun in
hand, little intent upon shooting. The quail whirred away from his
feet; the funny little squirrel leaped up the tree-side and peeped
around at him passing; but he heeded not these, and went forward to
find the cabin of old Toney. He found the old negro in his usual seat
at the foot of his favorite tree, upon his well-smoothed and sleek
wooden stool.
"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed Toney. "You come dis time widout Miss Alice. Why
she not come wid you? You not want somebody to turn de squirrel for
you? May be you bring de ole man more dan one dar?"
"It was too great a walk for her, Uncle Toney, and then she does not
like my company well enough to pay so much fatigue for it."
Toney laughed again. "Too much walk, indeed, she walk here most ebery
day, wid her little bonnet in her hand and basket too, wid sometin good
for Toney. When sun yonder and de shade cobber de groun; den she set
dare, (pointing to the grass which grew luxuriantly near by) and talk
to de ole man and lissen so still like a bird hiding, when I tell her
all bout de ole folks, dat is buried dare, and how we all comed away
from de States when de ole war driv us off, not General Jackson's war.
No, sir, General Washington's war, de ole war of all--and den, young
massa, you ought to see her. She's mity putty den, she is--face red and
smove, and she little tired and she look so like ole missus yonder,
when she was a gall, and dem English red coats comes out from
Charleston, to de ole place to see her. Dat's a long time ago, young
massa."
"Uncle Toney, how old are you?"
"Moss a hundred, young massa; I don't know zackly--but I great big boy
when I comed from de ole country, tudder side ob de sea--my country,
massa. When I comed to Charleston, I was so high--(holding his hand
some four feet from the earth) yet I was big nuff to plow, when ole
massa, de fadder of him burried yonder, bied me and tuck me up to de
high hills ob Santee. Den, sir, my massa who brought me here, was gone
to de country whar de white folks first comed from, England. I neber
see him till de ole war, when his fadder been dead two year, den he
comed home one night and all de family but one had gone to de war. He
not talk much, but look mity sorry. My ole missus was a pretty gall,
den, live close by us, and it not long afore dey gets married, and den
many ob de nabors come and dey hab long talk. Dey's all comes to de
greement to come away from de country, fraid ob de war, and all de
fadders ob all de nabors here take all der niggers and der stock and go
up de country to de riber dat's named de Holsten, and dare dey built
heep flat boats, and in de spring dey starts down de riber. Some ob de
boats hab hogs on 'em, some hosses, some cows, some niggers, some corn
and meat, and some de white families. Dar was boff de grandfadder ob
Miss Alice, and her fadder. He was small, not grown, and old massa, her
modder's fadder, was young wid young wife, but dey all made him
captain.
"We was long time comin down de riber, and we had to fite de Injuns
long time at de place dey calls Mussel Shoals. Some ob de boats got on
de ground, and one on em we had to leave wid de hogs on it. De bullets
come from the Injuns so hot dat we all had to get out into de water and
go to anudder boat and get away from dar. Dem was the wust Injuns I
ebber seed. But we got away and we runned all night. Nex day Miss
Alice's fadder was on de top ob de boat ob his fadder when Injun shoot
him in de back from de woods, and he buried wid dat bullet in him up
yonder to de great house. Well, young massa, we comed one day into a
big riber, and dar we stopt one hole week, and de massa and some on de
ress on em got out and luck at de country, but dey not like him and we
started agin, and de nex day we gits into di Massasippi, and in two
days more we comed to de place dey called New Madrid, and here stopt
agin.
"De land was mity level and rich, and all de men said dey would stop
here and live. De people what lived here was Spanish, and some niggers
and Injuns, and dey talked a lingo we didn't know. Dere was a nigger
who could talk American, and he comed one night and tuck ole massa out
and telled him de Spaniards was gwine to rob dem all, and dat dey would
kill all on de white folks, and take all de niggers and stock, and dey
was gwine to do it de fus dark night. Dis larmed us all, and dat night
we slipt off, and when mornin comed we was way down de riber and gwine
ahead I tell you. We neber stopt any more till we got to de mouth of
Cole's Creek. Dare de fadder of Miss Alice's fadder stopt, and said he
would stay dare. Ole massa seed an Injun dat tole him ob dis place and
dey started true de cane, dey was gone long time, but when dey comed
back, ole massa got us all ready and away we went and neber stopt till
we comed to the mouth of St. Catharine's, right ober dar. Dar we landed
and unloaded de boats, and in a week we was all camped up dar whar de
big percan is, and right dar de ole man raise all his family--and dar
he and ole missus died.
"All dis country was full ob deer and Injuns, and dem hills yonder was
all covered wid big canes and de biggest trees you ebber seed. Yonder,
all round dat mound we cleaned a field and planted corn and indigo; and
ober yonder was another settlement; and yonder, down de creek was
another; and on de cliffs was another, and den dare comed a heap ob
people and stopt at Natchez and St. Catharine, and all us people a
most, young massa, about here is come ob dem; but dare was trouble moss
all de time twixt em.
"Ole massa was made de Governor, by somebody, and dare was another man
made a Governor, too, and he git a company one night and comed down
here; but somebody had tole old massa, and dat day he tell me, and we
went down to de riber under de cliff war was some cane and he tole me
he was gwine to stay dar, and I muss bring him sometin to eat ebery
day, but I musn't tell whar he was, not eben to ole missus, for dey
would scare her and make her tell on him. Shore nuff, dat night here
dey comed, a many a one on em, and dey went right into de great house
and serched it and ebery whar, but dey was fooled bad, and den dey tuck
me and put a rope round my neck and hung me to de lim of a tree what is
dead and gone now, right out dar. But wen I was moss dead, dey let me
down and axed me whar was de Governor. I swared I didn't know, and dey
pulled me up agin; and dis time dey thought dey had killed me, shore
nuff. It was a long time before I comed to, and den I tole um I could
show um whar he was, and we started.
"De cane was mity thick, and we went up one hill and down another till
we comed to dat big hill ober de creek dar. De todder side ob it is
mity steep, but de cane was all de way down it. I was a good ways
before em and I jumpt down de steepest place and way I went through de
cane down de hill, and de way dey made de bullets whistle was curos.
But I got away and went round and told de ole man all dey had done.
When I went back all de black people was gone and missus said dese men
had tuck em off. De nex nite dey cotch me and carried me to whar our
black folks was, and den we all started in a boat down de riber, and
when we got to New Orleans we got on a skiff and run down de riber to a
big ship and went out to sea dat night and landed at Pensacola, and
dare dat wicked ole man sold us to de Spanish."
"Uncle Toney, who was that wicked old man?"
"Ah! my young massa, I musn't tell, cause his grandchillen is great
folks here now, and Miss Alice telled me I musn't tell all I knows. Dey
aint sponsible, she says, for what dere grandfadder did. But I tell you
he was a mity bad man. Well, I staid at Pensacola two years wid my ole
oman; and we could talk wid de Injuns, and one day two Injuns dat I
knowd out here comed to my cabin, and dey telled me dat ole massa was
gone way from here and missus was here by herself and had nobody to
help her. So I makes a bargain wid dese Injuns to come here wid me and
my old woman. One Saturday night we started to go and see some ob our
people dat was bout ten miles from whar we was; but we neber stopped.
We tuck to de woods, and we killed a deer wheneber we was hungry. De
Injuns, you know, can always do dat. We was a mity long time comin; but
at last we got here, and den it was moss a year arter dat before ole
massa come. Den dar was more trouble. One day dar comed fifty men and
tuck ole massa, and dey tied him and den begin to rob de house. Dey had
all de silver and sich like, when de captain comed in, and he did cuss
mity hard and made em put it every bit down, and march out. Ole missus
she thanked him mitily; but dey carried ole massa off to New Orleans.
"Dar was great trouble wid de nabors. Dey comed and talked bout it; and
one day when ole massa was gone bout a mont, when dey was all dar, who
should step into de house but ole massa. He was fash, I tell you he
was, Dar was old Mr. E----, and Mr. O---, and Mr. T----, and a heap
more, and dey all put der heads togeder and talked. One day ole massa
come to me and sez he: 'Toney, you mus get on my black hoss and go down
to de bluffs. Watch down de riber, and when you see two big boats comin
up--big keel-boats wid plenty ob men on em--way down de riber, jes come
as hard as de hoss can bring you here and let me know it.'
"I knowd dar was trouble comin, young massa; for I seed Miss Alice's
papa comin wid plenty ob de nabors wid him. He was a tall man, and
neber talk much. Miss Alice's modder was a young oman den, and I knowd
dey was gwine to be married. When she seed him wid his gun and so many
men she gins to cry. Well, I was gone quick, and moss as soon as I got
to de cliff, I see de boats way down de riber, pulling long by de
shore. I made dat hoss do his best home, when I told old massa: 'Dey's
comin, sir!' He sorter grin, and git on his hoss and gallop away down
toward St. Catharine's. He telled me to come on, and I comed. When we
got to de mouth ob de creek dar was fifty men dar, all wid der guns,
settin on de ground, and ole massa talkin to em. Way moss night de
boats comed in sight. Den all de men hide in de cane, and massa tell
me: 'Toney, you call em and tell em to come to de shore.' I called em,
and dey comed and tied der boats to de trees, and de captain and some
ob de men jumped on de land, and walked out, and corned close to me.
"De fuss ting dey knowd, bang! bang! bang! go de guns, and de captain
fall. De men all run for de boats, and de men on de boats gin to shoot
too. I runs wid all my might, and ole massa shout to his friends to
fire agin, and two men untying de boats fall. Den dey cut de ropes wid
an axe, and shove out de boats into de riber, and pull em away wid de
oars too far to hit em. Ole massa comes out ob de cane and goes to de
men what is lying on the ground. Dar was six on em, and four was dead
sure nuff. Two was jus wounded, and one of dese was de captain. Him de
same man what make his men put down de silber and tings dey was takin
from ole missus. Den dey carry all on em to de grate house and bury de
dead ones. De captain and de oder wounded man was tuck into de house,
and ole missus she knowd de captain, and she cried mitily bout his bein
shot. Well, he talk plenty bout his wife and modder, and Miss Alice's
modder nurse him; but he died, and his grave's yonder wid ole massa and
missus. De oder man he got well and went away, and berry soon arter dat
Miss Alice's fadder and modder got married. Dar come de judge. He hab
seen you, and he ride out ob de road to come see you."
"Toney, I shall come to see you again, and you must tell me more about
the family and these people about here; you must tell me everything."
"You musn't tell anybody I tell you anyting. De judge mity quare man;
he don't like for people to know all I knows."
The judge rode up, and Toney with great respect arose and saluted him.
"Ah!" said he, "you have found this old hermit, have you? Toney is the
chronicle of the neighborhood--a record of its history from the day of
its first settlement. I hope he has amused you. He is upwards of ninety
years old, and retains all his faculties in a remarkable degree."
"I have been quite entertained with his history of the descent of the
river with your ancestors. He seems to remember every incident, and
says your father was wounded at the Muscle Shoals on the Tennessee
River."
"He is quite right, sir. It was a perilous trip. My grandfather was a
man of wonderful energy and determination. He pioneered the ancestors
of almost every family in this vicinage to this place. There was a
large grant of land from the Spanish Government made here and divided
among his followers, every foot of which is in the possession of their
descendants to-day, except perhaps one thousand acres which were
swindled from my family by a most iniquitous decision of a jury,
influenced by an artful old Yankee lawyer. This spot here, sir, was the
nucleus of the first settlement which in a few years spread over the
country."
"This county I believe, sir, was once represented in the State of
Georgia as the County of Bourbon, at the time this State with Alabama
constituted a part of that State."
"My father was elected to represent the county, but he never took his
seat. We continued to be governed by the laws of Spain which we found
in force here until the line between Florida and the United States was
established--indeed until the American Government extended its
jurisdiction in the form of a territorial government over the country.
I am riding to my sisters. You will have fine shooting if you will go
through yonder piece of woods. Every tree seems to have a squirrel upon
it. We will meet again at tea. Adieu, till then."
"He been watchin you. Better go, young massa."
"You don't appear, Toney, to like your young master."
"Him not good to Miss Alice. He got plenty sisters; but he only lub
two, and dey don't lub anybody but just him. Him not like his fadder
nor ole massa yonder. He bring plenty trouble to massa and to his
modder. No, me don't like him. Miss Alice know him all."
"Well, Toney, no one shall ever know you have told me anything. Some of
these days I will come and see you again. Good by."
"God bress you, young massa! Kill ole nigger some squirrels. Tell Miss
Alice dey is for me, and she will make some on de little ones run down
here wid em. Good by, massa."
Slowly the young man wended his way to the mansion; but remembering the
negro's request, he shot several squirrels, and gave them as requested.
"Then you have been to see Uncle Toney. Did he give you any of his
stories? Like all old persons, he loves to talk about his younger
days."
"I was quite interested in his narrative of the trip down the river,
when your grandparents and your father emigrated to this part of the
country."
"Did he tell you his Indian ghost story?"
"He did not. He was quite communicative; but your brother came and
arrested his conversation." A shade fell upon the features of the
beautiful creature as she turned away to send the squirrels to Toney.
"These are beautiful grounds, Miss Ann."
"Yes, sir; there has been great care bestowed upon them, and they make
a fairy-land for my cousin who in fair weather is almost always found
here in these walks and shady retreats afforded by these old oaks and
pecans."
"There is something very beautiful, miss, in the attachment of Miss
Alice to Uncle Toney. The devotion to her on his part almost amounts to
adoration."
"My aunt, the mother of Alice, taught her this attachment. There is a
little history connected with it, and indeed, sir, all the family
remember his services to our grandfather in a most perilous moment; but
you must ask its narration from the old man. He loves to tell it. My
cousin's memory of her mother is the cherished of her heart. Indeed,
sir, that is a strong, deep heart. You may never know it; but should
you, you will remember that I told you there was but one Alice. In all
her feelings she is intense; her love is a flame--her hate a thorn; the
fragrance of the one is an incense--the piercing of the other is deep
and agonizing. Shan't we go in, sir; I see the damp of the dew is on
your boot-toe, and you have been ill. The absence of the sun is the
hour for pestilence to ride the breeze in our climate, and you cannot
claim to be fully acclimated."
The autumn progressed, and the rich harvests were being gathered and
garnered. This season is the longest and the loveliest of the year in
this beautiful country. During the months of September, October, and
November, there ordinarily falls very little rain, and the temperature
is but slightly different. The evolutions of nature are slow and
beneficent, and it seems to be a period especially disposed so that the
husbandman should reap in security the fruits of the year's labor. The
days lag lazily; the atmosphere is serene, and the cerulean, without a
cloud, is deeply blue. The foliage of the forest-trees, so gorgeous and
abundant, gradually loses the intense green of summer, fading and
yellowing so slowly as scarcely to be perceptible, and by such
attenuated degrees accustoming the eye to the change, that none of the
surprise or unpleasantness of sudden change is seen or experienced.
The fields grow golden; the redly-tinged leaves of the cotton-plant
contrast with the chaste pure white of the lint in the bursting pods,
now so abundantly yielding their wealth; the red ripe berries all over
the woods, and the busy squirrels gathering and hoarding these and the
richer forest-nuts; the cawing of the crows as they forage upon the
ungathered corn, feeding and watching with the consciousness of
thieves, and the fat cattle ruminating in the shade, make up a scene of
beauty and loveliness not met with in a less fervid clime. The
entranced rapture which filled my soul when first I looked upon this
scene comes over me now with a freshness that brings back the delights
of that day with all its cherished memories, though fifty years have
gone and their sorrows have crushed out all but hope from the
heart--and all the pleasures of the present are these memories kindly
clustering about the soul. Perhaps their delights, and those who shared
them, will revive in eternity. Perhaps not; perhaps all alike--the
pleasant and the painful--are to be lost in an eternal, oblivious
sleep. It is all speculation; yet hope and doubt go on to the grave,
and thence none return to cheer the one or elucidate the other. But be
it eternal life or eternal death, it is wise; for it is of God.
The autumn grew old and was threatening a frost--the great enemy of
fever. The falling leaves and the fitful gusts of chill wind presaged
the coming of winter. The ear caught the ring of sounds more distant
and more distinct now that the languor of summer was gone, and all
animal nature seemed more invigorated and more elastic. Health and her
inhabitants were returning to the city, and the guests of the
hospitable planters were thinning from the country. Business was
reviving and commotion was everywhere.
The young stranger was preparing to leave; yet he lingered. Ann had
gone; Alice grew more shy and timid, and his walks and rides were
solitary, and but that he loved nature in her autumn robes would have
been dull and uninteresting. The judge was absent at another plantation
beyond the river, and his books and his gun were his only companions.
Sometimes he read, sometimes he rode, and sometimes he walked to visit
Toney. It was on one of those peculiarly lonely afternoons which come
in the last days of October when the stillness persuades to rest and
meditation in the woods that, seated on a prostrate tree near the
pathway which led down the little creek to the residence of Uncle
Toney, the young guest of the judge was surprised by Alice with a small
negro girl on their way to visit Uncle Toney. Both started; but in a
moment were reassured, and slowly walked to the cabin of the good old
negro.
"I have come, Uncle Toney," said the youth, "to see you for the last
time. I am going away to-morrow and, as soon as I can, going back to
the distant home I so foolishly left."
"I am sorry you tell me so; won't you be sorry, Miss Alice?" asked
Toney. Alice bit her lip, and the flush upon her cheek was less ruddy
than usual.
"You no find dis country good like yourn, young massa?"
"Yes, Toney, this is a good country, and there is no country more
beautiful. But, uncle, it requires more than a beautiful country to
make us happy; we must have with us those we love, and who love us; and
the scenes of our childhood--our fathers and mothers, and brothers and
sisters who are glad with us and who sorrow with us, and the companions
of our school-days, to make us happy. I am here without any of
these--not a relation within a thousand miles; with no one to care for
me or to love me." There was something plaintively melancholly in his
words and tones. He looked at Alice, her eyes were swimming in tears
and she turned away from his gaze.
"You been mity sick, here, young massa, didn't Miss Alice be good to
you? Aunt Ann tell me so. If Miss Alice had not nuss you, you die."
Alice stepped into the cabin taking with her the basket the little
negro had borne, and placing its contents away, came out and handing it
to Rose, bid her run home. "I am coming," she said as she adjusted her
bonnet-strings, "the bugaboos won't catch you."
"Yes, Uncle Toney, I am very grateful to Miss Alice. I shall never
forget her."
How often that word is thoughtlessly spoken? Never to forget, is a long
time to remember. Our lives are a constant change: the present drives
out the past, and one memory usurps the place of another. Yet there are
some memories which are always green. These fasten themselves upon us
in agony. The pleasant are evanescent and pass away as a smile, but the
bitter live in sighs, recurring eternally.
Both were silent, both were thoughtful. "Good-by, Uncle Toney," said
Alice.
"May I join you in your walk home, miss?" There was something in the
tone of this request, which caused Alice to look up into his face and
pause a moment before replying, when she said, very timidly, "If you
please, sir."
The sun was drooping to the horizon and the shadows made giants as thy
grew along the sward. "Farewell, Uncle Toney," said the gentleman,
shaking hands with the old negro. Alice had walked on.
"O! you needn't say farewell so sorry, you'll come back. I sees him.
You'll come back. Eberybody who comes to dis country if he does go way
he's sure to come back, ticlar when he once find putty gall like Miss
Alice, ya! ya!" laughed the old man. "You'll come back. I knows it."
In a few moments he was by the side of Alice. They lounged lazily along
through the beautiful forest a few paces behind Rose, who was too much
afraid of bugaboos to allow herself to get far away from her mistress.
There was a chill in the atmosphere and now and then a fitful gust of
icy wind from the northwest. Winter was coming: these avant-couriers
whispered of it; and overhead, swooped high up in the blue, a host of
whooping cranes, marching in chase of the sun now cheering the
Antarctic just waking from his winter's sleep.
"I believe, sir," said Alice, "that the ancients watched the flight of
birds and predicated their predictions or prophecies upon them."
"Yes, the untutored of every age and country observe more closely the
operations of nature than the educated. It is their only means of
learning. They see certain movements in the beasts and the birds before
certain atmospheric changes, and their superstitions influence a
belief, that sentient and invisible beings cause this by communicating
the changes going on. The more sagacious and observant, and I may add
the less scrupulous, lay hold upon this knowledge, to practice for
their own pleasure or profit upon the credulity of the masses. There
are very many superstitions, miss, which are endowed with a character
so holy, that he who would expose them is hunted down as a wretch,
unworthy of life. The older and the more ridiculous these, the more
holy, and the more sacredly cherished."
"Are you not afraid thus to speak--is there nothing too holy to be
profanely assaulted?"
"Nothing which contravenes man's reason. Truth courts
investigation--the more disrobed, the more beautiful. Science reveals,
that there is no mystery in truth. Its simplicity is often disfigured
with unnatural and ridiculous superstitions, and these sometimes are so
prominent as to conceal it. They certainly, with many, bring it into
disrepute. The more intellectual pluck these off and cast them away.
They see and know the truth. Yonder birds obey an instinct: the chill
to their more sensitive natures warns them that the winter, or the
tempest, or the rain-storm is upon them; they obey this instinct and
fly from it. Yet it in due time follows these--the more observant know
it, and predict it. Those, with the ancients, were sooth-sayers or
prophets; with us, they are the same with the ignorant negroes; with
the whites, not quite so ignorant, they are--but, miss, I will not say.
I must exercise a little prudence to avoid the wrath of the
ignorant--they are multitudinous and very powerful."
"Kind sir, tell me, have you no superstitions? Has nothing ever
occurred to you, your reason could not account for? Have no
predictions, to be revealed in the coming future, come to you as
foretold?"
"Do not press me on that point, if you please, I might astonish and
offend you."
"I am not in the least afraid of your offending me, sir. I could not
look in your face and feel its inspirations, and believe you capable of
offending me."
"Thank you for the generous confidence, thank you. I am going and shall
remember this so long as I live, and when in my native land, will think
of it as too sacred for the keeping of any but myself."
"Are you really going to leave us, and so soon? I--I--would--but--"
"Miss Alice, I have trespassed too long already upon your brother's
hospitality; beside, Miss Alice, I begin to feel that his welcome is
worn out. Your brother, for some days, has seemed less cordial than was
his wont during the first weeks of my stay here."
"My brother, sir, is a strange being--a creature of whims and caprices.
There is nothing fixed or settled in his opinions or conduct. His
inviting you to spend the summer with us was a whim: one that has
astonished several who have not hesitated to express it. It is as
likely on his return from his river place, that he will devour you with
kindness as that he will meet you with the coldness he has manifested
for some days. Do not let your conduct be influenced by his whims."
"Miss Alice, I am suspicious, perhaps, by nature. I have thought that
you have avoided me lately. I have been very lonesome at times."
Alice lifted her bonnet from her head, and was swinging it by the
strings as she walked along for a few steps, when she stopped, and,
turning to her companion, said with a firm though timid voice: "I
cannot be deceitful. You have properly guessed: I have avoided you. It
was on your account as well as my own. My self-respect is in conflict
with my respect for you. I need not tell you why I avoided you; but I
will--conscious that I am speaking to a gentleman who will appreciate
my motives and preserve inviolate my communications. You saw my cousin
hurry away from here. She came to remain some weeks. The cause of her
going was my brother. From some strange, unaccountable cause he became
offended with her, and charged her with giving bad advice to me. What
she has said to me as advice since she came was in the privacy of my
bedroom, and in such tones that had he or another been in the chamber
they could not have overheard it. I know, sir, and in shame do I speak
it, that I am under the surveillance of the servants, who report to my
brother and my sister my every act and every word; and I know, too, my
brother's imagination supplies in many instances these reports. Why I
am thus watched I know not.
"My brother is my guardian, and nature and duty, it would seem, should
prompt him to guard my happiness as well as my interest; but I know in
the one instance he fails, and I fear in the other I am suffering. All
my family fear him, and none of them love me. I am my parents' youngest
child. Oh, sir! England is not the only country where it is a curse to
be a younger child. My father died when I was an infant. My mother was
affectionate and indulgent; my sisters were harsh and tyrannical, and
in very early girlhood taught me to hate them. My mother was made
miserable by their treatment of me; and my brother, too, quarrelled
with her because she would not subject me to the servility of the
discipline he prescribed. This quarrel ripened into hate, and he never
came to the house or spoke to my mother for years.
"The day before she died, and when her recovery was thought to be
impossible, he came with a prepared will and witnesses, which in their
presence he almost forced her to sign: in this will I was greatly
wronged, and this brother has tauntingly told me the cause of this was
my being the means of prejudicing our mother against him.
"He married a coarse, vulgar Kentucky woman, and brought her into the
house. She was insolent and disrespectful toward my mother, and I
resented it. She left the house, and died a few months after. Since
that day, though I was almost a child, my life has been one of constant
persecution on the part of my brother and sisters. I am compelled to
endure it, but do so under protest; if not in words, I do in manner,
and this I am persuaded you have on more than one occasion observed.
Please do not consider me impertinent, nor let it influence you in your
opinion of me, when I tell you my brother has rudely said to me that I
was too forward in my intercourse with you. It is humiliating to say
this to you; but I must, for it explains my conduct, which save in this
regard has been motiveless.
"A lady born to the inheritance of fortune is very unpleasantly
situated, both toward her family and to the world. These seem
solicitous to take greater interest in her pecuniary affairs than in
her personal happiness, and are always careful to warn her that her
money is more sought than herself--distracting her mind and feelings,
and keeping her constantly miserable. Since my school-days I have been
companionless. If I have gone into society, I have been under the guard
of one or the other of my sisters. These are cold, austere, and
repulsive, and especially toward those who would most likely seek my
society, and with whom I would most naturally be pleased. I must be
retired, cold, and never to seem pleased, but always remarkably silent
and dignified. I must be a goddess to be worshipped, and not an equal
to be approached and my society courted companionably. In fine, I was
to be miserable, and make all who came to me participate in this
misery. It was more agreeable to remain at home among my flowers and
shrubs, my books, and my visits to Uncle Toney. Do you wonder, sir,
that I seem eccentric? You know how the young love companionship--how
they crave the amusements which lend zest to life. I enjoy none of
this, and I am sometimes, I believe, nearly crazy. I fear you think me
so, now. I want to love my brother, but he will not permit me to do so.
I fear he has a nature so unlovable that such a feeling toward him
animates no heart. My sisters and a drunken sot of a brother-in-law
pretend to love him--but they measure their affection by the hope of
gain. They reside in Louisiana, and I am glad they are not here during
your stay--for you would certainly be insulted, especially if they saw
the slightest evidence of esteem for you on brother's part, or kindness
on mine."
"Oh! sir, how true is the Scripture, 'Out of the fulness of the heart
the mouth speaketh.' Out of my heart's fulness have I spoken, and, I
fear you will think, out of my heart's folly, too; and in my heart's
sincerity I tell you I do not know why I have done so to you--for I
have never said anything of these things to any one but cousin Ann,
before. Perhaps it is because I know you are going away and you will
not come to rebuke me with your presence any more; for indeed, sir, I
do not know how I could meet you and not blush at the memory of this
evening's walk."
"Miss Alice, I have a memory, or it may be a fancy, that in the
delirium of my fever, some weeks since, I saw you like a spirit of
light flitting about my bed and ministering to my wants; and I am sure,
when all supposed me _in extremis_, you came, and on my brow placed
your soft hand, and pressed it gently above my burning brain. My every
nerve thrilled beneath that touch; my dead extremities trembled and
were alive again. The brain resumed her functions, and the nervous
fluid flashed through my entire system, and departing life came back
again. You saved my life. Were the records of time and events opened to
my inspection and I could read it there, I could not more believe this
than I now do. Then what is due from me to you? This new evidence of
confidence adds nothing to the obligation--it was full without it. But
it is an inspiration I had not before. We are here, Miss Alice, within
a few steps of the threshold of the house in which you were born. I am
far from the land of my nativity--our meeting was strange, and this
second meeting not the less so."
"Ah! you have almost confessed that you are superstitious. You need not
have acknowledged that you are romantic; your young life has proven
this."
"Stay, Miss Alice: you asked me but now if there had never been the
realization of previous predictions. You said you knew I would not
offend you. I would not, but may. Now listen to me, here under the
shade of this old oak. When I was a child, my nurse was an aged African
woman; like all her race, she was full of superstition, and she would
converse with me of mysteries, and spells, and wonderful revelations,
until my mind was filled as her own with strange superstitions and
presentiments. On one occasion, on the Sabbath day, I found her in the
orchard, seated beneath a great pear-tree, and went to her--for though
I was no longer her ward to nurse, I liked to be with her and hear her
talk. It was a beautiful day, the fruit-trees were in bloom, and the
spring-feeling in the sunshine was kindling life into activity through
all nature. She asked me to let her see my hand and she would tell me
my fortune. She pretended sagely to view every line, and here and there
to press her index finger sharply down. At length she began to speak.
"'You will not stay with your people,' she said, 'but will be a great
traveller; and when in some far-away country, you will be sick--mighty
sick; and a beautiful woman will find you, and she will nurse you, and
you will love that beautiful woman, and she will love you, and she will
marry you, and you will not come to reside with your people any more.'
Now, Miss Alice, I have wandered far away from my home, have been sick,
very sick, and a beautiful woman has nursed me until I am well, and oh!
from my heart I do love that beautiful woman. So far all of this wild
prediction has been verified; and it remains with you, my dear Alice,
to say if the latter portion shall be. You are too candid to delay
reply, and too sincere to speak equivocally."
She trembled as she looked up into his face and read it for a moment.
"You are too much of a gentleman to speak as you have, unless it came
from your heart. O my God! is this reality, or am I dreaming?" She
drooped her head upon his shoulder, and said: "'Whither thou goest I
will go; thy house shall be my house, and thy God my God.'"
The full moon was just above the horizon, and the long dark shadows
veiled them from view. The judge rode in at the gate, and leaving his
horse, went directly into the house. A moment after a carriage drove
into the court, and from it dismounted the brother-in-law sot and her
weird sister; for indeed she was a very Hecate in looks and mischief.
Alice stole away to her chamber; and the happy stranger to wander among
the shrubs, regardless of the damp and chill.
Here were two young hearts conscious of happiness; but was it a
happiness derived from the respective merits and congenial natures of
the two known to each other? They were comparatively strangers, knowing
little of the antecedents of each other. Each was unhappily
situated--the one from poverty, the other owing to her wealth; the one
ardently desirous of bettering pecuniarily his position, the other to
release herself from restraints that were tyrannical and to enjoy that
independence which she felt was her natural right. Might not these
considerations override the purer impulses of the heart arising from
that regard for qualities which win upon the mind until ripened first
into deep respect, then mellowed into tender affection by association
protracted and intimate? They had been reared in societies radically
different: their early impressions were equally antagonistic; but their
aims were identical--to escape from present personal embarrassments.
They had met romantically. He had been removed for many months from the
presence of civilized society, though naturally fond of female
association, and craving deeply in his heart the communion again of
that intercourse, which had (as he had learned from sad experience)
been the chief cause of the happiness of his youth. He met her first as
he entered anew the relations of civilized and social society. She was
young and exquisitely beautiful. Their meeting was but for a moment;
their intercourse was intensely delightful to him, and the interest her
ardent nature manifested toward him was extremely captivating. He had
gone from her, with her in all his heart.
She for the time was free. She felt not the restraint of her female
relatives, and the ardor of her heart burned out in the delighted
surprise she experienced in the gentle and genial bearing of one to all
seeming rude and uncultivated as the savage he so much resembled in the
contour of his apparel. She had trembled with a strange ecstasy as he
strolled by her side, and felt a thrill pierce her soul as she looked
into his face and saw what she had never seen, beaming in his eyes. She
had never seen it before; yet she knew it, and felt she had found what
her heart had so long and so ardently craved. She had parted from him
with a consciousness that she was never to meet him again; and yet his
image was with her by day and by night--her fancy kept him by day, and
her dreams by night. She loved him for the mellow civilization of his
heart and for the wild savageness of his garb. Oh, the heart of dear
woman! it is her world. Would that the realizations of life were as her
heart paints and craves them! He had again come as unexpectedly to her;
but the figure was without its surroundings: the diamond was there, but
the setting was gone, and she was not agreeably surprised: hence the
indifference manifested by her when he discovered to her his identity.
Intercourse had revived the tenderness of the woman as it dispelled the
romance of the girl. Her affection she deemed was not a fancy, but a
feeling now. Her heart had wandered and fluttered like a wounded bird
seeking some friendly limb for support--some secluded shade for rest.
She had found all, and she was happy. He was her future; she thought of
none other--of nothing else. Was he as happy? He had seen the rough
side of the world, and thought more rationally. His night was
sleepless. In a moment of feeling he had asked and received the heart
of a lovely being whom he felt he could always love. He knew she was
more than anxious for a home where she was mistress, and he must
prepare it--but how, or where? He was without means. It was humiliating
to depend on hers; and this was the first alloy which stained and
impoverished the bliss of his anticipations.
They met in the early morning. Her brow was clouded. None were up save
themselves. Their interview was brief and explicit. He saw her in a new
phase; she had business tact as well as an independent spirit.
"You must leave this morning," she said, "and immediately after
breakfast. My sister has put the servants through the gantlet of
inquiry. They knew what she wanted to know, and if inclination had been
wanting, the fear of the stocks and torture would have compelled them
to tell it to her. She has heard all she wished, to her heart's
content. She was in my chamber until midnight, and, as usual, we have
quarrelled. They have told her that I was constantly with you, and that
I was in love with you, and a thousand things less true than this. She
has upbraided me for entering your chamber when you were sick. She
menacingly shook her finger at me, and almost threatened corporal
punishment if I did not desist from your association. I shall be
surprised if she does not insult you upon sight. Nothing will prevent
it but fear of offending brother. This she would not do for less than
half of his estate--for that, and even more, she is now playing. She
pretends devotion to him; and they profess a mutual attachment. If this
is sincere, it is the only love either of them ever felt. You must
express to brother, the moment you see him, your determination to leave
at once, and let it be decided. I don't know your means, but fear you
will be embarrassed, as you are comparatively a stranger, in preparing
a home for us. Give this to its address, and you will have all you
want. Do not stop to look at it. Put it in your pocket--there. I shall
not be at the table this morning; there would be unpleasantness for
you, I am sure. I shall not see you again until you come to carry me to
our own home, which shall be very soon. Despite this _contretemps_ I am
very happy; and now farewell. I will write to you; for to-day I mean to
tell brother I am to be your wife. I know how he will receive it; but
he knows me, and will more than simply approve it. He will wish to give
us a wedding; but I will not receive it. Our marriage must be private.
Again farewell!" Without a kiss they parted.
What were the reflections of this young man in his long morning's drive
he will never forget. 'Twas fifty years ago; but they are green in
memory yet, and will be until the grave yonder at the hill's foot, now
opening to view, shall close over--close out this mortality, and all
the memories which have imbittered life so long.