One cool October evening--it was the last day of the month, and
unusually cool for the time of year--I made up my mind to go and spend
an hour or two with my friend Keningale. Keningale was an artist (as
well as a musical amateur and poet), and had a very delightful studio
built onto his house, in which he was wont to sit of an evening. The
studio had a cavernous fire-place, designed in imitation of the
old-fashioned fire-places of Elizabethan manor-houses, and in it, when
the temperature out-doors warranted, he would build up a cheerful fire
of dry logs. It would suit me particularly well, I thought, to go and
have a quiet pipe and chat in front of that fire with my friend.
I had not had such a chat for a very long time--not, in fact, since
Keningale (or Ken, as his friends called him) had returned from his
visit to Europe the year before. He went abroad, as he affirmed at the
time, "for purposes of study," whereat we all smiled, for Ken, so far
as we knew him, was more likely to do anything else than to study. He
was a young fellow of buoyant temperament, lively and social in his
habits, of a brilliant and versatile mind, and possessing an income of
twelve or fifteen thousand dollars a year; he could sing, play,
scribble, and paint very cleverly, and some of his heads and
figure-pieces were really well done, considering that he never had any
regular training in art; but he was not a worker. Personally he was
fine-looking, of good height and figure, active, healthy, and with a
remarkably fine brow, and clear, full-gazing eye. Nobody was surprised
at his going to Europe, nobody expected him to do anything there except
amuse himself, and few anticipated that he would be soon again seen in
New York. He was one of the sort that find Europe agree with them. Off
he went, therefore; and in the course of a few months the rumor reached
us that he was engaged to a handsome and wealthy New York girl whom he
had met in London. This was nearly all we did hear of him until, not
very long afterward, he turned up again on Fifth Avenue, to every one's
astonishment; made no satisfactory answer to those who wanted to know
how he happened to tire so soon of the Old World; while, as to the
reported engagement, he cut short all allusion to that in so peremptory
a manner as to show that it was not a permissible topic of conversation
with him. It was surmised that the lady had jilted him; but, on the
other hand, she herself returned home not a great while after, and,
though she had plenty of opportunities, she has never married to this
day.
Be the rights of that matter what they may, it was soon remarked that
Ken was no longer the careless and merry fellow he used to be; on the
contrary, he appeared grave, moody, averse from general society, and
habitually taciturn and undemonstrative even in the company of his most
intimate friends. Evidently something had happened to him, or he had
done something. What? Had he committed a murder? or joined the
Nihilists? or was his unsuccessful love affair at the bottom of it?
Some declared that the cloud was only temporary, and would soon pass
away. Nevertheless, up to the period of which I am writing, it had not
passed away, but had rather gathered additional gloom, and threatened
to become permanent.
Meanwhile I had met him twice or thrice at the club, at the opera, or
in the street, but had as yet had no opportunity of regularly renewing
my acquaintance with him. We had been on a footing of more than common
intimacy in the old days, and I was not disposed to think that he would
refuse to renew the former relations now. But what I had heard and
myself seen of his changed condition imparted a stimulating tinge of
suspense or curiosity to the pleasure with which I looked forward to
the prospects of this evening. His house stood at a distance of two or
three miles beyond the general range of habitations in New York at this
time, and as I walked briskly along in the clear twilight air I had
leisure to go over in my mind all that I had known of Ken and had
divined of his character. After all, had there not always been
something in his nature--deep down, and held in abeyance by the
activity of his animal spirits--but something strange and separate, and
capable of developing under suitable conditions into--into what? As I
asked myself this question I arrived at his door; and it was with a
feeling of relief that I felt the next moment the cordial grasp of his
hand, and his voice bidding me welcome in a tone that indicated
unaffected gratification at my presence. He drew me at once into the
studio, relieved me of my hat and cane, and then put his hand on my
shoulder.
"I am glad to see you," he repeated, with singular earnestness--"glad
to see you and to feel you; and to-night of all nights in the year."
"Why to-night especially?"
"Oh, never mind. It's just as well, too, you didn't let me know
beforehand you were coming; the unreadiness is all, to paraphrase the
poet. Now, with you to help me, I can drink a glass of whisky and water
and take a bit draw of the pipe. This would have been a grim night for
me if I'd been left to myself."
"In such a lap of luxury as this, too!" said I, looking round at the
glowing fire-place, the low, luxurious chairs, and all the rich and
sumptuous fittings of the room. "I should have thought a condemned
murderer might make himself comfortable here."
"Perhaps; but that's not exactly my category at present. But have you
forgotten what night this is? This is November-eve, when, as tradition
asserts, the dead arise and walk about, and fairies, goblins, and
spiritual beings of all kinds have more freedom and power than on any
other day of the year. One can see you've never been in Ireland."
"I wasn't aware till now that you had been there, either."
"Yes, I have been in Ireland. Yes--" He paused, sighed, and fell into a
reverie, from which, however, he soon roused himself by an effort, and
went to a cabinet in a corner of the room for the liquor and tobacco.
While he was thus employed I sauntered about the studio, taking note of
the various beauties, grotesquenesses, and curiosities that it
contained. Many things were there to repay study and arouse admiration;
for Ken was a good collector, having excellent taste as well as means
to back it. But, upon the whole, nothing interested me more than some
studies of a female head, roughly done in oils, and, judging from the
sequestered positions in which I found them, not intended by the artist
for exhibition or criticism. There were three or four of these studies,
all of the same face, but in different poses and costumes. In one the
head was enveloped in a dark hood, overshadowing and partly concealing
the features; in another she seemed to be peering duskily through a
latticed casement, lit by a faint moonlight; a third showed her
splendidly attired in evening costume, with jewels in her hair and
cars, and sparkling on her snowy bosom. The expressions were as various
as the poses; now it was demure penetration, now a subtle inviting
glance, now burning passion, and again a look of elfish and elusive
mockery. In whatever phase, the countenance possessed a singular and
poignant fascination, not of beauty merely, though that was very
striking, but of character and quality likewise.
"Did you find this model abroad?" I inquired at length. "She has
evidently inspired yon, and I don't wonder at it."
Ken, who had been mixing the punch, and had not noticed my movements,
now looked up, and said: "I didn't mean those to be seen. They don't
satisfy me, and I am going to destroy them; but I couldn't rest till
I'd made some attempts to reproduce--What was it you asked? Abroad?
Yes--or no. They were all painted here within the last six weeks."
'"Whether they satisfy you or not, they are by far the best things of
yours I have ever seen."
'"Well, let them alone, and tell me what you think of this beverage. To
my thinking, it goes to the right spot. It owes its existence to your
coming here. I can't drink alone, and those portraits are not company,
though, for aught I know, she might have come out of the canvas
to-night and sat down in that chair." Then, seeing my inquiring look,
he added, with a hasty laugh, "It's November-eve, you know, when
anything may happen, provided its strange enough. Well, here's to
ourselves."
We each swallowed a deep draught of the smoking and aromatic liquor,
and set down our glasses with approval. The punch was excellent. Ken
now opened a box of cigars, and we seated ourselves before the
fire-place.
"All we need now," I remarked, after a short silence, "is a little
music. By-the-by, Ken, have you still got the banjo I gave you before
you went abroad?"
He paused so long before replying that I supposed he had not heard my
question. "I have got it," he said, at length, "but it will never make
any more music."
"Got broken, eh? Can't it be mended? It was a fine instrument."
"It's not broken, but it's past mending. You shall see for yourself."
He arose as he spoke, and going to another part of the studio, opened a
black oak coffer, and took out of it a long object wrapped up in a
piece of faded yellow silk. He handed it to me, and when I had
unwrapped it, there appeared a thing that might once have been a banjo,
but had little resemblance to one now. It bore every sign of extreme
age. The wood of the handle was honeycombed with the gnawings of worms,
and dusty with dry-rot. The parchment head was green with mold, and
hung in shriveled tatters. The hoop, which was of solid silver, was so
blackened and tarnished that it looked like dilapidated iron. The
strings were gone, and most of the tuning-screws had dropped out of
their decayed sockets. Altogether it had the appearance of having been
made before the Flood, and been forgotten in the forecastle of Noah's
Ark ever since.
"It is a curious relic, certainly," I said. "Where did you come across
it? I had no idea that the banjo was invented so long ago as this. It
certainly can't be less than two hundred years old, and may be much
older than that."
Ken smiled gloomily. "You are quite right," lie said; "it is at least
two hundred years old, and yet it is the very same banjo that you gave
me a year ago."
"Hardly," I returned, smiling in my turn, "since that was made to my
order with a view to presenting it to you."
"I know that; but the two hundred years have passed since then. Yes; it
is absurd and impossible, I know, but nothing is truer. That banjo,
which was made last year, existed in the sixteenth century, and has
been rotting ever since. Stay. Give it to me a moment, and I'll
convince you. You recollect that your name and mine, with the date,
were engraved on the silver hoop?"
"Yes; and there was a private mark of my own there, also."
"Very well," said Ken, who had been rubbing a place on the hoop with a
corner of the yellow silk wrapper; "look at that."
I took the decrepit instrument from him, and examined the spot which he
had rubbed. It was incredible, sure enough; but there were the names
and the date precisely as I had caused them to be engraved; and there,
moreover, was my own private mark, which I had idly made with an old
etching point not more than eighteen months before. After convincing
myself that there was no mistake, I laid the banjo across my knees, and
stared at my friend in bewilderment. He sat smoking with a kind of grim
composure, his eyes fixed upon the blazing logs.
"I'm mystified, I confess," said I. "Come; what is the joke? What
method have you discovered of producing the decay of centuries on this
unfortunate banjo in a few months? And why did you do it? I have heard
of an elixir to counteract the effects of time, but your recipe seems
to work the other way--to make time rush forward at two hundred times
his usual rate, in one place, while he jogs on at his usual gait
elsewhere. Unfold your mystery, magician. Seriously, Ken, how on earth
did the thing happen?"
"I know no more about it than you do," was his reply. "Either you and I
and all the rest of the living world are insane, or else there has been
wrought a miracle as strange as any in tradition. How can I explain it?
It is a common saying--a common experience, if you will--that we may,
on certain trying or tremendous occasions, live years in one moment.
But that's a mental experience, not a physical one, and one that
applies, at all events, only to human beings, not to senseless things
of wood and metal. You imagine the thing is some trick or jugglery. If
it be, I don't know the secret of it. There's no chemical appliance
that I ever heard of that will get a piece of solid wood into that
condition in a few months, or a few years. And it wasn't done in a few
years, or a few months either. A year ago today at this very hour that
banjo was as sound as when it left the maker's hands, and twenty-four
hours afterward--I'm telling you the simple truth--it was as you see it
now."
The gravity and earnestness with which Ken made this astounding
statement were evidently not assumed, He believed every word that he
uttered. I knew not what to think. Of course my friend might be insane,
though he betrayed none of the ordinary symptoms of mania; but, however
that might be, there was the banjo, a witness whose silent testimony
there was no gainsaying. The more I meditated on the matter the more
inconceivable did it appear. Two hundred years--twenty-four hours;
these were the terms of the proposed equation. Ken and the banjo both
affirmed that the equation had been made; all worldly knowledge and
experience affirmed it to be impossible. "What was the explanation?
What is time? What is life? I felt myself beginning to doubt the
reality of all things. And so this was the mystery which my friend had
been brooding over since his return from abroad. No wonder it had
changed him. More to be wondered at was it that it had not changed him
more.
"Can you tell me the whole story?" I demanded at length.
Ken quaffed another draught from his glass of whisky and water and
rubbed his hand through his thick brown beard. "I have never spoken to
any one of it heretofore," he said, "and I had never meant to speak of
it. But I'll try and give you some idea of what it was. You know me
better than any one else; you'll understand the thing as far as it can
ever be understood, and perhaps I may be relieved of some of the
oppression it has caused me. For it is rather a ghastly memory to
grapple with alone, I can tell you."
Hereupon, without further preface, Ken related the following tale. He
was, I may observe in passing, a naturally fine narrator. There were
deep, lingering tones in his voice, and he could strikingly enhance the
comic or pathetic effect of a sentence by dwelling here and there upon
some syllable. His features were equally susceptible of humorous and of
solemn expressions, and his eyes were in form and hue wonderfully
adapted to showing great varieties of emotion. Their mournful aspect
was extremely earnest and affecting; and when Ken was giving utterance
to some mysterious passage of the tale they had a doubtful, melancholy,
exploring look which appealed irresistibly to the imagination. But the
interest of his story was too pressing to allow of noticing these
incidental embellishments at the time, though they doubtless had their
influence upon me all the same.
"I left New York on an Inman Line steamer, you remember," began Ken,
"and landed at Havre. I went the usual round of sight-seeing on the
Continent, and got round to London in July, at the height of the
season. I had good introductions, and met any number of agreeable and
famous people. Among others was a young lady, a countrywoman of my
own--you know whom I mean--who interested me very much, and before her
family left London she and I were engaged. We parted there for the
time, because she had the Continental trip still to make, while I
wanted to take the opportunity to visit the north of England and
Ireland. I landed at Dublin about the 1st of October, and, zigzagging
about the country, I found myself in County Cork about two weeks later.
"There is in that region some of the most lovely scenery that human
eyes ever rested on, and it seems to be less known to tourists than
many places of infinitely less picturesque value. A lonely region too:
during my rambles I met not a single stranger like myself, and few
enough natives. It seems incredible that so beautiful a country should
be so deserted. After walking a dozen Irish miles you come across a
group of two or three one-roomed cottages, and, like as not, one or
more of those will have the roof off and the walls in ruins. The few
peasants whom one sees, however, are affable and hospitable, especially
when they hear you are from that terrestrial heaven whither most of
their friends and relatives have gone before them. They seem simple and
primitive enough at first sight, and yet they are as strange and
incomprehensible a race as any in the world. They are as superstitious,
as credulous of marvels, fairies, magicians, and omens, as the men whom
St. Patrick preached to, and at the same time they are shrewd,
skeptical, sensible, and bottomless liars. Upon the whole, I met with
no nation on my travels whose company I enjoyed so much, or who
inspired me with so much kindliness, curiosity, and repugnance.
"At length I got to a place on the sea-coast, which I will not further
specify than to say that it is not many miles from Ballymacheen, on the
south shore. I have seen Venice and Naples, I have driven along the
Cornice Road, I have spent a month at our own Mount Desert, and I say
that all of them together are not so beautiful as this glowing,
deep-hued, soft-gleaming, silvery-lighted, ancient harbor and town,
with the tall hills crowding round it and the black cliffs and
headlands planting their iron feet in the blue, transparent sea. It is
a very old place, and has had a history which it has outlived ages
since. It may once have had two or three thousand inhabitants; it has
scarce five or six hundred to day. Half the houses are in ruins or have
disappeared; many of the remainder are standing empty. All the people
are poor, most of them abjectly so; they saunter about with bare feet
and uncovered heads, the women in quaint black or dark-blue cloaks, the
men in such anomalous attire as only an Irishman knows how to get
together, the children half naked. The only comfortable-looking people
are the monks and the priests, and the soldiers in the fort. For there
is a fort there, constructed on the huge ruins of one which may have
done duty in the reign of Edward the Black Prince, or earlier, in whose
mossy embrasures are mounted a couple of cannon, which occasionally
sent a practice-shot or two at the cliff on the other side of the
harbor. The garrison consists of a dozen men and three or four officers
and non-commissioned officers. I suppose they are relieved
occasionally, but those I saw seemed to have become component parts of
their surroundings.
"I put up at a wonderful little old inn, the only one in the place, and
took my meals in a dining-saloon fifteen feet by nine, with a portrait
of George I (a print varnished to preserve it) hanging over the
mantel-piece. On the second evening after dinner a young gentleman came
in--the dining-saloon being public property of course--and ordered some
bread and cheese and a bottle of Dublin stout. We presently fell into
talk; he turned out to be an officer from the fort, Lieutenant
O'Connor, and a fine young specimen of the Irish soldier he was. After
telling me all he knew about the town, the surrounding country, his
friends, and himself, he intimated a readiness to sympathize with
whatever tale I might choose to pour into his ear; and I had pleasure
in trying to rival his own outspokenness. We became excellent friends;
we had up a half-pint of Kinahan's whisky, and the lieutenant expressed
himself in terms of high praise of my countrymen, my country, and my
own particular cigars. When it became time for him to depart I
accompanied him--for there was a splendid moon abroad--and bade him
farewell at the fort entrance, having promised to come over the next
day and make the acquaintance of the other fellows. 'And mind your eye,
now, going back, my dear boy,' he called out, as I turned my face
homeward. 'Faith, 'tis a spooky place, that graveyard, and you'll as
likely meet the black woman there as anywhere else!'
"The graveyard was a forlorn and barren spot on the hill-side, just the
hither side of the fort: thirty or forty rough head-stones, few of
which retained any semblance of the perpendicular, while many were so
shattered and decayed as to seem nothing more than irregular natural
projections from the ground. Who the black woman might be I knew not,
and did not stay to inquire. I had never been subject to ghostly
apprehensions, and as a matter of fact, though the path I had to follow
was in places very bad going, not to mention a hap-hazard scramble over
a ruined bridge that covered a deep-lying brook, I reached my inn
without any adventure whatever.
"The next day I kept my appointment at the fort, and found no reason to
regret it; and my friendly sentiments were abundantly reciprocated,
thanks more especially, perhaps, to the success of my banjo, which I
carried with me, and which was as novel as it was popular with those
who listened to it. The chief personages in the social circle besides
my friend the lieutenant were Major Molloy, who was in command, a racy
and juicy old campaigner, with a face like a sunset, and the surgeon,
Dr. Dudeen, a long, dry, humorous genius, with a wealth of anecdotical
and traditional lore at his command that I have never seen surpassed.
We had a jolly time of it, and it was the precursor of many more like
it. The remains of October slipped away rapidly, and I was obliged to
remember that I was a traveler in Europe, and not a resident in
Ireland. The major, the surgeon, and the lieutenant all protested
cordially against my proposed departure, but, as there was no help for
it, they arranged a farewell dinner to take place in the fort on
All-halloween.
"I wish you could have been at that dinner with me! It was the essence
of Irish good-fellowship. Dr. Dudeen was in great force; the major was
better than the best of Lever's novels; the lieutenant was overflowing
with hearty good-humor, merry chaff, and sentimental rhapsodies anent
this or the other pretty girl of the neighborhood. For my part I made
the banjo ring as it had never rung before, and the others joined in
the chorus with a mellow strength of lungs such as you don't often hear
outside of Ireland. Among the stories that Dr. Dudeen regaled us with
was one about the Kern of Querin and his wife, Ethelind
Fionguala--which being interpreted signifies 'the white-shouldered.'
The lady, it appears, was originally betrothed to one O'Connor (here
the lieutenant smacked his lips), but was stolen away on the wedding
night by a party of vampires, who, it would seem, were at that period a
prominent feature among the troubles of Ireland. But as they were
bearing her along--she being unconscious--to that supper where she was
not to eat but to be eaten, the young Kern of Querin, who happened to
be out duck-shooting, met the party, and emptied his gun at it. The
vampires fled, and the Kern carried the fair lady, still in a state of
insensibility, to his house. 'And by the same token, Mr. Keningale,'
observed the doctor, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, 'ye're after
passing that very house on your way here. The one with the dark archway
underneath it, and the big mullioned window at the corner, ye
recollect, hanging over the street as I might say--'
"'Go 'long wid the house, Dr. Dudeen, dear,' interrupted the
lieutenant; 'sure can't you see we're all dying to know what happened
to sweet Miss Fionguala, God be good to her, when I was after getting
her safe up-stairs--'
"'Faith, then, I can tell ye that myself, Mr. O'Connor,' exclaimed the
major, imparting a rotary motion to the remnants of whisky in his
tumbler. ''Tis a question to be solved on general principles, as
Colonel O'Halloran said that time he was asked what he'd do if he'd
been the Book o' Wellington, and the Prussians hadn't come up in the
nick o' time at Waterloo. 'Faith,' says the colonel, 'I'll tell ye--'
"'Arrah, then, major, why would ye be interruptin' the doctor, and Mr.
Keningale there lettin' his glass stay empty till he hears--The Lord
save us! the bottle's empty!'
"In the excitement consequent upon this discovery, the thread of the
doctor's story was lost; and before it could be recovered the evening
had advanced so far that I felt obliged to withdraw. It took some time
to make my proposition heard and comprehended; and a still longer time
to put it in execution; so that it was fully midnight before I found
myself standing in the cool pure air outside the fort, with the
farewells of my boon companions ringing in my ears.
"Considering that it had been rather a wet evening in-doors, I was in a
remarkably good state of preservation, and I therefore ascribed it
rather to the roughness of the road than to the smoothness of the
liquor, when, after advancing a few rods, I stumbled and fell. As I
picked myself up I fancied I had heard a laugh, and supposed that the
lieutenant, who had accompanied me to the gate, was making merry over
my mishap; but on looking round I saw that the gate was closed and no
one was visible. The laugh, moreover, had seemed to be close at hand,
and to be even pitched in a key that was rather feminine than
masculine. Of course I must have been deceived; nobody was near me: my
imagination had played me a trick, or else there was more truth than
poetry in the tradition that Halloween is the carnival-time of
disembodied spirits. It did not occur to me at the time that a stumble
is held by the superstitious Irish to be an evil omen, and had I
remembered it it would only have been to laugh at it. At all events, I
was physically none the worse for my fall, and I resumed my way
immediately.
"But the path was singularly difficult to find, or rather the path I
was following did not seem to be the right one. I did not recognize it;
I could have sworn (except I knew the contrary) that I had never seen
it before. The moon had risen, though her light was as yet obscured by
clouds, but neither my immediate surroundings nor the general aspect of
the region appeared familiar. Dark, silent hill-sides mounted up on
either hand, and the road, for the most part, plunged downward, as if
to conduct me into the bowels of the earth. The place was alive with
strange echoes, so that at times I seemed to be walking through the
midst of muttering voices and mysterious whispers, and a wild, faint
sound of laughter seemed ever and anon to reverberate among the passes
of the hills. Currents of colder air sighing up through narrow defiles
and dark crevices touched my face as with airy fingers. A certain
feeling of anxiety and insecurity began to take possession of me,
though there was no definable cause for it, unless that I might be
belated in getting home. With the perverse instinct of those who are
lost I hastened my steps, but was impelled now and then to glance back
over my shoulder, with a sensation of being pursued. But no living
creature was in sight. The moon, however, had now risen higher, and the
clouds that were drifting slowly across the sky flung into the naked
valley dusky shadows, which occasionally assumed shapes that looked
like the vague semblance of gigantic human forms.
"How long I had been hurrying onward I know not, when, with a kind of
suddenness, I found myself approaching a graveyard. It was situated on
the spur of a hill, and there was no fence around it, nor anything to
protect it from the incursions of passers-by. There was something in
the general appearance of this spot that made me half fancy I had seen
it before; and I should have taken it to be the same that I had often
noticed on my way to the fort, but that the latter was only a few
hundred yards distant therefrom, whereas I must have traversed several
miles at least. As I drew near, moreover, I observed that the
head-stones did not appear so ancient and decayed as those of the
other. But what chiefly attracted my attention was the figure that was
leaning or half sitting upon one of the largest of the upright slabs
near the road. It was a female figure draped in black, and a closer
inspection--for I was soon within a few yards of her--showed that she
wore the calla, or long hooded cloak, the most common as well as the
most ancient garment of Irish women, and doubtless of Spanish origin.
"I was a trifle startled by this apparition, so unexpected as it was,
and so strange did it seem that any human creature should be at that
hour of the night in so desolate and sinister a place. Involuntarily I
paused as I came opposite her, and gazed at her intently. But the
moonlight fell behind her, and the deep hood of her cloak so completely
shadowed her face that I was unable to discern anything but the sparkle
of a pair of eyes, which appeared to be returning my gaze with much
vivacity.
"'You seem to be at home here,' I said, at length. 'Can you tell me
where I am?'
"Hereupon the mysterious personage broke into a light laugh, which,
though in itself musical and agreeable, was of a timbre and intonation
that caused my heart to beat rather faster than my late pedestrian
exertions warranted; for it was the identical laugh (or so my
imagination persuaded me) that had echoed in my ears as I arose from my
tumble an hour or two ago. For the rest, it was the laugh of a young
woman, and presumably of a pretty one; and yet it had a wild, airy,
mocking quality, that seemed hardly human at all, or not, at any rate,
characteristic of a being of affections and limitations like unto ours.
But this impression of mine was fostered, no doubt, by the unusual and
uncanny circumstances of the occasion.
"'Sure, sir,' said she, 'you're at the grave of Ethelind Fionguala.'
"As she spoke she rose to her feet, and pointed to the inscription on
the stone. I bent forward, and was able, without much difficulty, to
decipher the name, and a date which indicated that the occupant of the
grave must have entered the disembodied state between two and three
centuries ago.
"'And who are you?' was my next question.
"'I'm called Elsie,' she replied. 'But where would your honor be going
November-eve?'
"I mentioned my destination, and asked her whether she could direct me
thither.
"'Indeed, then, 'tis there I'm going myself,' Elsie replied; 'and if
your honor'll follow me, and play me a tune on the pretty instrument,
'tisn't long we'll be on the road.'
"She pointed to the banjo which I carried wrapped up under my arm. How
she knew that it was a musical instrument I could not imagine;
possibly, I thought, she may have seen me playing on it as I strolled
about the environs of the town. Be that as it may, I offered no
opposition to the bargain, and further intimated that I would reward
her more substantially on our arrival. At that she laughed again, and
made a peculiar gesture with her hand above her head. I uncovered my
banjo, swept my fingers across the strings, and struck into a fantastic
dance-measure, to the music of which we proceeded along the path, Elsie
slightly in advance, her feet keeping time to the airy measure. In
fact, she trod so lightly, with an elastic, undulating movement, that
with a little more it seemed as if she might float onward like a
spirit. The extreme whiteness of her feet attracted my eye, and I was
surprised to find that instead of being bare, as I had supposed, these
were incased in white satin slippers quaintly embroidered with gold
thread.
"'Elsie,' said I, lengthening my steps so as to come up with her,
'where do you live, and what do you do for a living?'
"'Sure, I live by myself,' she answered; 'and if you'd be after knowing
how, you must come and see for yourself.'
"'Are you in the habit of walking over the hills at night in shoes like
that?'
"'And why would I not?' she asked, in her turn. 'And where did your
honor get the pretty gold ring on your finger?'
"The ring, which was of no great intrinsic value, had struck my eye in
an old curiosity-shop in Cork. It was an antique of very old-fashioned
design, and might have belonged (as the vender assured me was the case)
to one of the early kings or queens of Ireland.
"'Do you like it?' said I.
"'Will your honor be after making a present of it to Elsie?' she
returned, with an insinuating tone and turn of the head.
"'Maybe I will, Elsie, on one condition. I am an artist; I make
pictures of people. If you will promise to come to my studio and let me
paint your portrait, I'll give you the ring, and some money besides.'
"'And will you give me the ring now?' said Elsie.
"'Yes, if you'll promise.'
"'And will you play the music to me?' she continued.
"'As much as you like.'
"'But maybe I'll not be handsome enough for ye,' said she, with a
glance of her eyes beneath the dark hood.
"'I'll take the risk of that,' I answered, laughing, 'though, all the
same, I don't mind taking a peep beforehand to remember you by.' So
saying, I put forth a hand to draw back the concealing hood. But Elsie
eluded me, I scarce know how, and laughed a third time, with the same
airy, mocking cadence.
"'Give me the ring first, and then you shall see me,' she said,
coaxingly.
"'Stretch out your hand, then,' returned I, removing the ring from my
finger. 'When we are better acquainted, Elsie, you won't be so
suspicious.'
"She held out a slender, delicate hand, on the forefinger of which I
slipped the ring. As I did so, the folds of her cloak fell a little
apart, affording me a glimpse of a white shoulder and of a dress that
seemed in that deceptive semi-darkness to be wrought of rich and costly
material; and I caught, too, or so I fancied, the frosty sparkle of
precious stones.
"'Arrah, mind where ye tread!' said Elsie, in a sudden, sharp tone.
"I looked round, and became aware for the first time that we were
standing near the middle of a ruined bridge which spanned a rapid
stream that flowed at a considerable depth below. The parapet of the
bridge on one side was broken down, and I must have been, in fact, in
imminent danger of stepping over into empty air. I made my way
cautiously across the decaying structure; but, when I turned to assist
Elsie, she was nowhere to be seen.
"What had become of the girl? I called, but no answer came. I gazed
about on every side, but no trace of her was visible. Unless she had
plunged into the narrow abyss at my feet, there was no place where she
could have concealed herself--none at least that I could discover. She
had vanished, nevertheless; and since her disappearance must have been
premeditated, I finally came to the conclusion that it was useless to
attempt to find her. She would present herself again in her own good
time, or not at all. She had given me the slip very cleverly, and I
must make the best of it. The adventure was perhaps worth the ring.
"On resuming my way, I was not a little relieved to find that I once
more knew where I was. The bridge that I had just crossed was none
other than the one I mentioned some time back; I was within a mile of
the town, and my way lay clear before me. The moon, moreover, had now
quite dispersed the clouds, and shone down with exquisite brilliance.
Whatever her other failings, Elsie had been a trustworthy guide; she
had brought me out of the depth of elf-land into the material world
again. It had been a singular adventure, certainly; and I mused over it
with a sense of mysterious pleasure as I sauntered along, humming
snatches of airs, and accompanying myself on the strings. Hark! what
light step was that behind me? It sounded like Elsie's; but no, Elsie
was not there. The same impression or hallucination, however, recurred
several times before I reached the outskirts of the town--the tread of
an airy foot behind or beside my own. The fancy did not make me
nervous; on the contrary, I was pleased with the notion of being thus
haunted, and gave myself up to a romantic and genial vein of reverie.
"After passing one or two roofless and moss-grown cottages, I entered
the narrow and rambling street which leads through the town. This
street a short distance down widens a little, as if to afford the
wayfarer space to observe a remarkable old house that stands on the
northern side. The house was built of stone, and in a noble style of
architecture; it reminded me somewhat of certain palaces of the old
Italian nobility that I had seen on the Continent, and it may very
probably have been built by one of the Italian or Spanish immigrants of
the sixteenth or seventeenth century. The molding of the projecting
windows and arched doorway was richly carved, and upon the front of the
building was an escutcheon wrought in high relief, though I could not
make out the purport of the device. The moonlight falling upon this
picturesque pile enhanced all its beauties, and at the same time made
it seem like a vision that might dissolve away when the light ceased to
shine. I must often have seen the house before, and yet I retained no
definite recollection of it; I had never until now examined it with my
eyes open, so to speak. Leaning against the wall on the opposite side
of the street, I contemplated it for a long while at my leisure. The
window at the corner was really a very fine and massive affair. It
projected over the pavement below, throwing a heavy shadow aslant; the
frames of the diamond-paned lattices were heavily mullioned. How often
in past ages had that lattice been pushed open by some fair hand,
revealing to a lover waiting beneath in the moonlight the charming
countenance of his high-born mistress! Those were brave days. They had
passed away long since. The great house had stood empty for who could
tell how many years; only bats and vermin were its inhabitants. Where
now were those who had built it? and who were they? Probably the very
name of them was forgotten.
"As I continued to stare upward, however, a conjecture presented itself
to my mind which rapidly ripened into a conviction. Was not this the
house that Dr. Dudeen had described that very evening as having been
formerly the abode of the Kern of Querin and his mysterious bride?
There was the projecting window, the arched doorway. Yes, beyond a
doubt this was the very house. I emitted a low exclamation of renewed
interest and pleasure, and my speculations took a still more
imaginative, but also a more definite turn.
"What had been the fate of that lovely lady after the Kern had brought
her home insensible in his arms? Did she recover, and were they married
and made happy ever after; or had the sequel been a tragic one? I
remembered to have read that the victims of vampires generally became
vampires themselves. Then my thoughts went back to that grave on the
hill-side. Surely that was unconsecrated ground. Why had they buried
her there? Ethelind of the white shoulder! Ah! why had not I lived in
those days; or why might not some magic cause them to live again for
me? Then would I seek this street at midnight, and standing here
beneath her window, I would lightly touch the strings of my bandore
until the casement opened cautiously and she looked down. A sweet
vision indeed! And what prevented my realizing it? Only a matter of a
couple of centuries or so. And was time, then, at which poets and
philosophers sneer, so rigid and real a matter that a little faith and
imagination might not overcome it? At all events, I had my banjo, the
bandore's legitimate and lineal descendant, and the memory of Fionguala
should have the love-ditty.
"Hereupon, having retuned the instrument, I launched forth into an old
Spanish love-song, which I had met with in some moldy library during my
travels, and had set to music of my own. I sang low, for the deserted
street re-echoed the lightest sound, and what I sang must reach only my
lady's ears. The words were warm with the fire of the ancient Spanish
chivalry, and I threw into their expression all the passion of the
lovers of romance. Surely Fionguala, the white-shouldered, would hear,
and awaken from her sleep of centuries, and come to the latticed
casement and look down! Hist! see yonder! What light--what shadow is
that that seems to flit from room to room within the abandoned house,
and now approaches the mullioned window? Are my eyes dazzled by the
play of the moonlight, or does the casement move--does it open? Nay,
this is no delusion; there is no error of the senses here. There is
simply a woman, young, beautiful, and richly attired, bending forward
from the window, and silently beckoning me to approach.
"Too much amazed to be conscious of amazement, I advanced until I stood
directly beneath the casement, and the lady's face, as she stooped
toward me, was not more than twice a man's height from my own. She
smiled and kissed her finger-tips; something white fluttered in her
hand, then fell through the air to the ground at my feet. The next
moment she had withdrawn, and I heard the lattice close. I picked up
what she had let fall; it was a delicate lace handkerchief, tied to the
handle of an elaborately wrought bronze key. It was evidently the key
of the house, and invited me to enter. I loosened it from the
handkerchief, which bore a faint, delicious perfume, like the aroma of
flowers in an ancient garden, and turned to the arched doorway. I felt
no misgiving, and scarcely any sense of strangeness. All was as I had
wished it to be, and as it should be; the mediaeval age was alive once
more, and as for myself, I almost felt the velvet cloak hanging from my
shoulder and the long rapier dangling at my belt. Standing in front of
the door I thrust the key into the lock, turned it, and felt the bolt
yield. The next instant the door was opened, apparently from within; I
stepped across the threshold, the door closed again, and I was alone in
the house, and in darkness.
"Not alone, however! As I extended my hand to grope my way it was met
by another hand, soft, slender, and cold, which insinuated itself
gently into mine and drew me forward. Forward I went, nothing loath;
the darkness was impenetrable, but I could hear the light rustle of a
dress close to me, and the same delicious perfume that had emanated
from the handkerchief enriched the air that I breathed, while the
little hand that clasped and was clasped by my own alternately
tightened and half relaxed the hold of its soft cold fingers. In this
manner, and treading lightly, we traversed what I presumed to be a
long, irregular passageway, and ascended a staircase. Then another
corridor, until finally we paused, a door opened, emitting a flood of
soft light, into which we entered, still hand in hand. The darkness and
the doubt were at an end.
"The room was of imposing dimensions, and was furnished and decorated
in a style of antique splendor. The walls were draped with mellow hues
of tapestry; clusters of candles burned in polished silver sconces, and
were reflected and multiplied in tall mirrors placed in the four
corners of the room. The heavy beams of the dark oaken ceiling crossed
each other in squares, and were laboriously carved; the curtains and
the drapery of the chairs were of heavy-figured damask. At one end of
the room was a broad ottoman, and in front of it a table, on which was
set forth, in massive silver dishes, a sumptuous repast, with wines in
crystal beakers. At the side was a vast and deep fire-place, with space
enough on the broad hearth to burn whole trunks of trees. No fire,
however, was there, but only a great heap of dead embers; and the room,
for all its magnificence, was cold--cold as a tomb, or as my lady's
hand--and it sent a subtle chill creeping to my heart.
"But my lady! how fair she was! I gave but a passing glance at the
room; my eyes and my thoughts were all for her. She was dressed in
white, like a bride; diamonds sparkled in her dark hair and on her
snowy bosom; her lovely face and slender lips were pale, and all the
paler for the dusky glow of her eyes. She gazed at me with a strange,
elusive smile; and yet there was, in her aspect and bearing, something
familiar in the midst of strangeness, like the burden of a song heard
long ago and recalled among other conditions and surroundings. It
seemed to me that something in me recognized her and knew her, had
known her always. She was the woman of whom I had dreamed, whom I had
beheld in visions, whose voice and face had haunted me from boyhood up.
Whether we had ever met before, as human beings meet, I knew not;
perhaps I had been blindly seeking her all over the world, and she had
been awaiting me in this splendid room, sitting by those dead embers
until all the warmth had gone out of her blood, only to be restored by
the heat with which my love might supply her.
"'I thought you had forgotten me,' she said, nodding as if in answer to
my thought. 'The night was so late--our one night of the year! How my
heart rejoiced when I heard your dear voice singing the song I know so
well! Kiss me--my lips are cold!'
"Cold indeed they were--cold as the lips of death. But the warmth of my
own seemed to revive them. They were now tinged with a faint color, and
in her cheeks also appeared a delicate shade of pink. She drew fuller
breath, as one who recovers from a long lethargy. Was it my life that
was feeding her? I was ready to give her all. She drew me to the table
and pointed to the viands and the wine.
"'Eat and drink,' she said. 'You have traveled far, and you need food.'
"'Will you eat and drink with me?' said I, pouring out the wine.
"'You are the only nourishment I want,' was her answer.' This wine is
thin and cold. Give me wine as red as your blood and as warm, and I
will drain a goblet to the dregs.'
"At these words, I know not why, a slight shiver passed through me. She
seemed to gain vitality and strength at every instant, but the chill of
the great room struck into me more and more.
"She broke into a fantastic flow of spirits, clapping her hands, and
dancing about me like a child. Who was she? And was I myself, or was
she mocking mo when she implied that we had belonged to each other of
old? At length she stood still before me, crossing her hands over her
breast. I saw upon the forefinger of her right hand the gleam of an
antique ring.
"'Where did you get that ring?' I demanded.
"She shook her head and laughed. 'Have you been faithful?' she asked.
'It is my ring; it is the ring that unites us; it is the ring you gave
me when you loved me first. It is the ring of the Kern--the fairy ring,
and I am your Ethelind--Ethelind Fionguala.'
"'So be it,' I said, casting aside all doubt and fear, and yielding
myself wholly to the spell of her inscrutable eyes and wooing lips.
'You are mine, and I am yours, and let us be happy while the hours
last.'
"'You are mine, and I am yours,' she repeated, nodding her head with an
elfish smile. 'Come and sit beside me, and sing that sweet song again
that you sang to me so long ago. Ah, now I shall live a hundred years.'
"We seated ourselves on the ottoman, and while she nestled luxuriously
among the cushions, I took my banjo and sang to her. The song and the
music resounded through the lofty room, and came back in throbbing
echoes. And before me as I sang I saw the face and form of Ethelind
Fionguala, in her jeweled bridal dress, gazing at me with burning eyes.
She was pale no longer, but ruddy and warm, and life was like a flame
within her. It was I who had become cold and bloodless, yet with the
last life that was in me I would have sung to her of love that can
never die. But at length my eyes grew dim, the room seemed to darken,
the form of Ethelind alternately brightened and waxed indistinct, like
the last flickerings of a fire; I swayed toward her, and felt myself
lapsing into unconsciousness, with my head resting on her white
shoulder."
Here Keningale paused a few moments in his story, flung a fresh log
upon the fire, and then continued:
"I awoke, I know not how long afterward. I was in a vast, empty room in
a ruined building. Rotten shreds of drapery depended from the walls,
and heavy festoons of spiders' webs gray with dust covered the windows,
which were destitute of glass or sash; they had been boarded up with
rough planks which had themselves become rotten with age, and admitted
through their holes and crevices pallid rays of light and chilly
draughts of air. A bat, disturbed by these rays or by my own movement,
detached himself from his hold on a remnant of moldy tapestry near me,
and after circling dizzily around my head, wheeled the flickering
noiselessness of his flight into a darker corner. As I arose unsteadily
from the heap of miscellaneous rubbish on which I had been lying,
something which had been resting across my knees fell to the floor with
a rattle. I picked it up, and found it to be my banjo--as you see it
now.
"Well, that is all I have to tell. My health was seriously impaired;
all the blood seemed to have been drawn out of my veins; I was pale and
haggard, and the chill--Ah, that chill," murmured Keningale, drawing
nearer to the fire, and spreading out his hands to catch the warmth--"I
shall never get over it; I shall carry it to my grave."
"WHEN HALF-GODS GO, THE GODS ARRIVE."
"What a beautiful girl!" said Mr. Ambrose Drayton to himself; "and how
much she looks like--" He cut the comparison short, and turned his eyes
seaward, pulling at his mustache meditatively the while.
"This American atmosphere, fresh and pure as it is in the nostrils, is
heavy-laden with reminiscences," his thoughts ran on. "Reminiscences,
but always with differences, the chief difference being, no doubt, in
myself. And no wonder. Nineteen years; yes, it's positively nineteen
years since I stood here and gazed out through yonder gap between the
headlands. Nineteen years of foreign lands, foreign men and manners,
the courts, the camps, the schools; adventure, business, and
pleasure--if I may lightly use so mysterious a word. Nineteen and
twenty are thirty-nine; in my case say sixty at least. Why, a girl like
that lovely young thing walking away there with her light step and her
innocent heart would take me to be sixty to a dead certainty. A rather
well-preserved man of sixty--that's how she'd describe me to the young
fellow she's given her heart to. Well, sixty or forty, what difference?
When a man has passed the age at which he falls in love, he is the peer
of Methuselah from that time forth. But what a fiery season that of
love is while it lasts! Ay, and it burns something out of the soul that
never grows again. And well that it should do so: a susceptible heart
is a troublesome burden to lug round the world. Curious that I should
be even thinking of such things: association, I suppose. Here it was
that we met and here we parted. But what a different place it was then!
A lovely cape, half bleak moorland and half shaggy wood, a few rocky
headlands and a great many coots and gulls, and one solitary old
farmhouse standing just where that spick-and-span summer hotel, with
its balconies and cupolas, stands now. So it was nineteen years ago,
and so it may be again, perhaps, nine hundred years hence; but
meanwhile, what a pretty array of modern aesthetic cottages, and plank
walks, and bridges, and bathing-houses, and pleasure-boats! And what an
admirable concourse of well-dressed and pleasurably inclined men and
women! After all, my countrymen are the finest-looking and most
prosperous-appearing people on the globe. They have traveled a little
faster than I have, and on a somewhat different track; but I would
rather be among them than anywhere else. Yes, I won't go back to
London, nor yet to Paris, or Calcutta, or Cairo. I'll buy a cottage
here at Squittig Point, and live and die here and in New York. I wonder
whether Mary is alive and mother of a dozen children, or--not!"
"Auntie," said Miss Leithe to her relative, as they regained the
veranda of their cottage after their morning stroll on the beach, "who
was that gentleman who looked at us?"
"Hey?--who?" inquired the widow of the late Mr. Corwin, absently.
"The one in the thin gray suit and Panama hat; you must have seen him.
A very distinguished-looking man and yet very simple and pleasant; like
some of those nice middle-aged men that you see in 'Punch,' slenderly
built, with handsome chin and eyes, and thick mustache and whiskers.
Oh, auntie, why do you never notice things? I think a man between forty
and fifty is ever so much nicer than when they're younger. They know
how to be courteous, and they're not afraid of being natural. I mean
this one looks as if he would. But he must be somebody remarkable in
some way--don't you think so? There's something about him--something
graceful and gentle and refined and manly--that makes most other men
seem common beside him. Who do you suppose he can be?"
"Who?--what have you been saying, my dear?" inquired Aunt Corwin,
rousing herself from the perusal of a letter. "Here's Sarah writes that
Frank Redmond was to sail from Havre the 20th; so he won't be here for
a week or ten days yet."
"Well, he might not have come at all," said the girl, coloring
slightly. "I'm sure I didn't think he would, when he went away."
"You are both of you a year older and wiser," said the widow,
meditatively; "and you have learned, I hope, not to irritate a man
needlessly. I never irritated Corwin in all my life. They don't
understand it."
"Here comes Mr. Haymaker," observed Miss Leithe. "I shall ask him."
"Don't ask him in," said Mrs. Corwin, retiring; "he chatters like an
organ-grinder."
"Oh, good-morning, Miss Mary!" exclaimed Mr. Haymaker, as he mounted
the steps of the veranda, with his hands extended and his customary
effusion. "How charming you are looking after your bath and your walk
and all! Did you ever see such a charming morning? I never was at a
place I liked so much as Squittig Point; the new Newport, I call
it--eh? the new Newport. So fashionable already, and only been going,
as one might say, three or four years! Such charming people here! Oh,
by-the-way, whom do you think I ran across just now? You wouldn't know
him, though--been abroad since before you were born, I should think.
Most charming man I ever met, and awfully wealthy. Ran across him in
Europe--Paris, I think it was--stop! or was it Vienna? Well, never
mind. Drayton, that's his name; ever hear of him? Ambrose Drayton. Made
a great fortune in the tea-trade; or was it in the mines? I've
forgotten. Well, no matter. Great traveler, too--Africa and the Corea,
and all that sort of thing; and fought under Garibaldi, they say; and
he had the charge of some diplomatic affair at Pekin once. The
quietest, most gentlemanly fellow you ever saw. Oh, you must meet him.
He's come back to stay, and will probably spend the summer here. I'll
get him and introduce him. Oh, he'll be charmed--we all shall."
"What sort of a looking person is he?" Miss Leithe inquired.
"Oh, charming--just right! Trifle above medium height; rather lighter
weight than I am, but graceful; grayish hair, heavy mustache, blue
eyes; style of a retired English colonel, rather. You know what I
mean--trifle reticent, but charming manners. Stop! there he goes
now--see him? Just stopping to light a cigar--in a line with the
light-house. Now he's thrown away the match, and walking on again.
That's Ambrose Drayton. Introduce him on the sands this afternoon. How
is your good aunt to-day? So sorry not to have seen her! Well, I must
be off; awfully busy to-day. Good-by, my dear Miss Mary; see you this
afternoon. Good-by. Oh, make my compliments to your good aunt, won't
you? Thanks. So charmed! _Au revoir_."
"Has that fool gone?" demanded a voice from within.
"Yes, Auntie," the young lady answered.
"Then come in to your dinner," the voice rejoined, accompanied by the
sound of a chair being drawn up to a table and sat down upon. Mary
Leithe, after casting a glance after the retreating figure of Mr.
Haymaker and another toward the light-house, passed slowly through the
wire-net doors and disappeared.
Mr. Drayton had perforce engaged his accommodations at the hotel, all
the cottages being either private property or rented, and was likewise
constrained, therefore, to eat his dinner in public. But Mr. Drayton
was not a hater of his species, nor a fearer of it; and though he had
not acquired precisely our American habits and customs, he was disposed
to be as little strange to them as possible. Accordingly, when the gong
sounded, he entered the large dining-room with great intrepidity. The
arrangement of tables was not continuous, but many small tables,
capable of accommodating from two to six, were dotted about everywhere.
Mr. Drayton established himself at the smallest of them, situated in a
part of the room whence he had a view not only of the room itself, but
of the blue sea and yellow rocks on the other side. This preliminary
feat of generalship accomplished, he took a folded dollar bill from his
pocket and silently held it up in the air, the result being the speedy
capture of a waiter and the introduction of dinner.
But at this juncture Mr. Haymaker came pitching into the room, as his
nature was, and pinned himself to a standstill, as it were, with his
eyeglass, in the central aisle of tables. Drayton at once gave himself
up for lost, and therefore received Mr. Haymaker with kindness and
serenity when, a minute or two later, he came plunging up, in his usual
ecstasy of sputtering amiability, and seated himself in the chair at
the other side of the table with an air as if everything were charming
in the most charming of all possible worlds, and he himself the most
charming person in it.
"My dear Drayton, though," exclaimed Mr. Haymaker, in the interval
between the soup and the bluefish, "there is some one here you must
know--most charming girl you ever knew in your life, and has set her
heart on knowing you. We were talking about you this morning--Miss Mary
Leithe. Lovely name, too; pity ever to change it--he! he! he! Why, you
must have seen her about here; has an old aunt, widow of Jim Corwin,
who's dead and gone these five years. You recognize her, of course?"
"Not as you describe her," said Mr. Drayton, helping his friend to fish.
"Oh, the handsomest girl about here; tallish, wavy brown hair, soft
brown eyes, the loveliest-shaped eyes in the world, my dear fellow;
complexion like a Titian, figure slender yet, but promising. A way of
giving you her hand that makes you wish she would take your heart,"
pursued Mr. Haymaker, impetuously filling his mouth with bluefish,
during the disposal of which he lost the thread of his harangue.
Drayton, however, seemed disposed to recover it for him.
"Is this young lady from New England?" he inquired.
"New-Yorker by birth," responded the ever-vivacious Haymaker; "father a
Southern man; mother a Bostonian. Father died eight or nine years after
marriage; mother survived him six years; girl left in care of old Mrs.
Corwin--good old creature, but vague--very vague. Don't fancy the
marriage was a very fortunate one; a little friction, more or less.
Leithe was rather a wild, unreliable sort of man; Mrs. Leithe a woman
not easily influenced--immensely charming, though, and all that, but a
trifle narrow and set. Well, you know, it was this way: Leithe was an
immensely wealthy man when she married him; lost his money, struggled
along, good deal of friction; Mrs. Leithe probably felt she had made a
mistake, and that sort of thing. But Miss Mary here, very different
style, looks like her mother, but softer; more in her, too. Very little
money, poor girl, but charming. Oh! you must know her."
"What did you say her mother's maiden name was?"
"Maiden name? Let me see. Why--oh, no--oh, yes--Cleveland, Mary
Cleveland."
"Mary Cleveland, of Boston; married Hamilton Leithe, about nineteen
years ago. I used to know the lady. And this is her daughter! And Mary
Cleveland is dead!--Help yourself, Haymaker. I never take more than one
course at this hour of the day."
"But you must let me introduce you, you know," mumbled Haymaker,
through his succotash.
"I hardly know," said Drayton, rubbing his mustache. "Pardon me if I
leave you," he added, looking at his watch. "It is later than I
thought."
Nothing more was seen of Drayton for the rest of that day. But the next
morning, as Mary Leithe sat on the Bowlder Rock, with a book on her
lap, and her eyes on the bathers, and her thoughts elsewhere, she heard
a light, leisurely tread behind her, and a gentlemanly, effective
figure made its appearance, carrying a malacca walking-stick, and a
small telescope in a leather case slung over the shoulder.
"Good-morning, Miss Leithe," said this personage, in a quiet and
pleasant voice. "I knew your mother before you were born, and I can not
feel like a stranger toward her daughter. My name is Ambrose Drayton.
You look something like your mother, I think."
"I think I remember mamma's having spoken of you," said Mary Leithe,
looking up a little shyly, but with a smile that was the most winning
of her many winning manifestations. Her upper lip, short, but somewhat
fuller than the lower one, was always alive with delicate movements;
the corners of her mouth were blunt, the teeth small; and the smile was
such as Psyche's might have been when Cupid waked her with a kiss.
"It was here I first met your mother," continued Drayton, taking his
place beside her. "We often sat together on this very rock. I was a
young fellow then, scarcely older than you, and very full of romance
and enthusiasm. Your mother--". He paused a moment, looking at his
companion with a grave smile in his eyes. "If I had been as dear to her
as she was to me," he went on, "you would have been our daughter."
Mary looked out upon the bathers, and upon the azure bay, and into her
own virgin heart. "Are you married, too?" she asked at length.
"I was cut out for an old bachelor, and I have been true to my
destiny," was his reply. "Besides, I've lived abroad till a month or
two ago, and good Americans don't marry foreign wives."
"I should like to go abroad," said Mary Leithe.
"It is the privilege of Americans," said Drayton. "Other people are
born abroad, and never know the delight of real travel. But, after all,
America is best. The life of the world culminates here. We are the prow
of the vessel; there may be more comfort amidships, but we are the
first to touch the unknown seas. And the foremost men of all nations
are foremost only in so far as they are at heart American; that is to
say, America is, at present, even more an idea and a principle than it
is a country. The nation has perhaps not yet risen to the height of its
opportunities. So you have never crossed the Atlantic?"
"No; my father never wanted to go; and after he died, mamma could not."
"Well, our American Emerson says, you know, that, as the good of travel
respects only the mind, we need not depend for it on railways and
steamboats."
"It seems to me, if we never moved ourselves, our minds would never
really move either."
"Where would you most care to go?"
"To Rome, and Jerusalem, and Egypt, and London."
"Why?"
"They seem like parts of my mind that I shall never know unless I visit
them."
"Is there no part of the world that answers to your heart?"
"Oh, the beautiful parts everywhere, I suppose."
"I can well believe it," said Drayton, but with so much simplicity and
straightforwardness that Mary Leithe's cheeks scarcely changed color.
"And there is beauty enough here," he added, after a pause.
"Yes; I have always liked this place," said she, "though the cottages
seem a pity."
"You knew the old farm-house, then?"
"Oh, yes; I used to play in the farm-yard when I was a little girl.
After my father died, Mamma used to come here every year. And my aunt
has a cottage here now. You haven't met my aunt, Mr. Drayton?"
"I wished to know you first. But now I want to know her, and to become
one of the family. There is no one left, I find, who belongs to me.
What would you think of me for a bachelor uncle?"
"I would like it very much," said Mary, with a smile.
"Then let us begin," returned Drayton.
Several days passed away very pleasantly. Never was there a bachelor
uncle so charming, as Haymaker would have said, as Drayton. The kind of
life in the midst of which he found himself was altogether novel and
delightful to him. In some aspects it was like enjoying for the first
time a part of his existence which he should have enjoyed in youth, but
had missed; and in many ways he doubtless enjoyed it more now than he
would have done then, for he brought it to a maturity of experience
which had taught him the inestimable value of simple things; a quiet
nobility of character and clearness of knowledge that enabled him to
perceive and follow the right course in small things as in great; a
serene yet cordial temperament that rendered him the cheerfulest and
most trustworthy of companions; a generous and masculine disposition,
as able to direct as to comply; and years which could sympathize
impartially with youth and age, and supply something which each lacked.
He, meanwhile, sometimes seemed to himself to be walking in a dream.
The region in which he was living, changed, yet so familiar, the
thought of being once more, after so many years of homeless wandering,
in his own land and among his own countrymen, and the companionship of
Mary Leithe, like, yet so unlike, the Mary Cleveland he had known and
loved, possessing in reality all the tenderness and lovely virginal
sweetness that he had imagined in the other, with a warmth of heart
that rejuvenated his own, and a depth and freshness of mind answering
to the wisdom that he had drawn from experience, and rendering her,
though in her different and feminine sphere, his equal--all these
things made Drayton feel as if he would either awake and find them the
phantasmagoria of a beautiful dream, or as if the past time were the
dream, and this the reality. Certainly, in this ardent, penetrating
light of the present, the past looked vaporous and dim, like a range of
mountains scaled long ago and vanishing on the horizon.
And was this all? Doubtless it was, at first. It was natural that
Drayton should regard with peculiar tenderness the daughter of the
woman he had loved. She was an orphan, and poor; he was alone in the
world, with no one dependent upon him, and with wealth which could find
no better use than to afford this girl the opportunities and the
enjoyments which she else must lack. His anticipations in returning to
America had been somewhat cold and vague. It was his native land; but
abstract patriotism is, after all, rather chilly diet for a human being
to feed his heart upon. The unexpected apparition of Mary Leithe had
provided just that vividness and particularity that were wanting.
Insensibly Drayton bestowed upon her all the essence of the love of
country which he had cherished untainted throughout his long exile. It
was so much easier and simpler a thing to know and appreciate her than
to do as much for the United States and their fifty million
inhabitants, national, political, and social, that it is no wonder if
Drayton, as a modest and sane gentleman, preferred to make the former
the symbol of the latter--of all, at least, that was good and lovable
therein. At the same time, so clear-headed a man could scarcely have
failed to be aware that his affection for Mary Leithe was not actually
dependent upon the fact of her being an emblem. Upon what, then, was it
dependent? Upon her being the daughter of Mary Cleveland? It was true
that he had loved Mary Cleveland; but she had deliberately jilted him
to marry a wealthier man, and was therefore connected with and
responsible for the most painful as well as the most pleasurable
episode of his early life. Mary Leithe bore some personal resemblance
to her mother; but had she been as like her in character and
disposition as she was in figure and feature, would Drayton, knowing
what he knew, have felt drawn toward her? A man does not remain for
twenty years under the influence of an unreasonable and mistaken
passion. Drayton certainly had not, although his disappointment had
kept him a bachelor all his life, and altered the whole course of his
existence. But when we have once embarked upon a certain career, we
continue in it long after the motive which started us has been
forgotten. No; Drayton's regard for Mary Leithe must stand on its own
basis, independent of all other considerations.
What, in the next place, was the nature of this regard? Was it merely
avuncular, or something different? Drayton assured himself that it was
the former. He was a man of the world, and had done with passions. The
idea of his falling in love made him smile in a deprecatory manner.
That the object of such love should be a girl eighteen years his junior
rendered the suggestion yet more irrational. She was lustrous with
lovable qualities, which he genially recognized and appreciated; nay,
he might love her, but the love would be a quasi-paternal one, not the
love that demands absolute possession and brooks no rivalry. His
attitude was contemplative and beneficent, not selfish and exclusive.
His greatest pleasure would be to see her married to some one worthy of
her. Meantime he might devote himself to her freely and without fear.