THE CHILD FINA.
Nothing surprised the North Astonians more than what it was the
fashion to call "the admirable manner in which Leam behaved to
the child Fina." If the world which praised her had known all the
compelling circumstances, would it have called her admirable then? Yet
beyond those natural promptings of remorse which forced her to do
the best she could for the child whom her fatal crime had rendered
motherless, Leam did honestly behave well, if this means doing irksome
things without complaint and sacrificing self to a sense of right. And
this was all the more praiseworthy in that sympathy of nature between
these two young creatures there was none, and the girl's maternal
instinct was not of that universal kind which makes all children
pleasant, whatever they may be. Hence, she did nobly when she did her
duty with the uncompromising exactness characteristic of her; but then
it was only duty, it was not love.
How should it be love? Her tenacity and reserve were ill matched with
Fina's native inconstancy of purpose and childish incontinence of
speech; her pride of race resented her father's adoption of a stranger
into the penetralia of the family; and to share the name she had
inherited from her mother with the daughter of that mother's rival
seemed to her a wrong done to both the living and the dead. Naturally
taciturn, unjoyful, and ever oppressed by that brooding consciousness
of guilt hanging like a cloud over her memory, formless, vague, but
never lifting, Fina's changeful temper and tumultuous vivacity were
intensely wearisome to her. Nevertheless, she was forbearing if not
loving, and the people said rightly when they said she was admirable.
Her grave patience with the little one did more to open her father's
heart to her than did even her own wonderful beauty, which gratified
his paternal pride of authorship, or than her efforts after docility
to himself--efforts that would have been creditable to any one, and
that with her were heroic. For Mr. Dundas, being of those clinging,
clasping natures which must love some one, had taken poor madame's
child into his affections in the wholesale manner so emphatically his
own, now in these first days of his new paternity seeming to live only
for the little Fina, and never happy but when he had her with him. It
was the first time that he felt he had had a child of his own; and he
gave her the love which would have been Leam's had Pepita been less
of a savage than she was, and more discreet in the matter of
doll-dressing.
The little round, fair-haired creature, with her picturesque
Gainsborough head and rose-red lips, pretty, pleasant, facile, easily
amused if easily made cross, divertible from her purpose if she was
but coaxed and caressed, and if the substitute offered was to her
liking--without tenacity, fluid, floating on the surface of things and
born of their froth; loving only those who ministered to her pleasure
and were in sight; forgetting yesterday's joys as though they had
never been, and her dearest the moment they were absent--a child
deliciously caressing because sensual by temperament and instinctively
diplomatic, with no latent greatness to be developed as time went on
and the flower set into the fruit. Epitomizing the characteristics of
the class of which her mother had been a typical example, she was the
pleasantest thing of his life to a man who cared mainly to be amused,
and who liked with a woman's liking to be loved.
The strong love of children inherent in him, which had never been
satisfied till now, seemed now to have gathered tenfold strength, and
the love of the man, who had never cared for his own, for this his
little daughter by adoption was almost a passion. If Leam could have
been jealous where she did not love, she would have been jealous of
her father and Fina. But she was not. On the contrary, it seemed to
soften some of the bitterness of her self-reproach, and she was glad
that madame's motherless child was not deserted, but had found a
substitute for the protection which she had taken from her; for Leam,
criminal, was not ignoble.
A few days after the meeting on the moor between Learn and Edgar, Mr.
Dundas drove to the Hill, carrying Fina with him. Leam had a fit of
shyness and refused to go: thus Sebastian had the child to himself,
and was not sorry to be without his elder and less congenial daughter.
He owned to himself that she was good, very good indeed, and a great
deal better than he ever expected she would be; yet for all that, with
her more than Oriental gravity and reserve, and that look of tragedy
haunting her face, she was not an amusing companion, and the little
one was.
Mr. Dundas had begun to take up his old habits again with the
Harrowbys. He found the patient constancy of his friend Josephine not
a disagreeable salve for a wounded heart and broken life; albeit poor
dear Joseph was getting stout and matronly, and took off the keen edge
of courtship by a willingness too manifest for wisdom. Sebastian liked
to be loved, but he did not like to be bored by being made overmuch
love to. The things are different, and most men resent the latter, how
much soever they desire the former.
Edgar was in the drawing-room when Mr. Dundas was announced. He was
booted and spurred, waiting his horse to be brought round. "What a
pretty little girl!" he said after a time. True to his type, he was
fond of children and animals, and children and animals liked him.
"Come and speak to me," he continued, holding out his hand to
Fina.--"Whose child is she?" vaguely to the company in general.
"Mine," said Mr. Dundas emphatically--"my youngest daughter, Fina
Dundas."
Edgar knew what he meant. He had often heard the story from his
sisters, and since his return home he had had Adelaide Birkett's
comments thereon. He looked then with even more interest on the
pretty little creature in dark-blue velvet and swansdown, careless,
unconscious, happy, as the child of a mystery and a tragedy in one.
"Ah!" he said sympathetically. "Come to me, little one," again,
coaxingly.
Fina, with her finger in her mouth, went up to him half shyly, half
boldly, and wholly prettily. She let him take her on his knee and kiss
her without remonstrance. She was of the kind to like being taken on
knees and kissed--especially by gentlemen who were strong and matronly
women who were soft--and she soon made friends. Not many minutes
elapsed before, kneeling upon his knees, she was stroking his tawny
beard and plaiting it in threes, pulling his long moustache, playing
with his watch-guard, and laughing in his face with the pretty
audacity of six.
"What a dear little puss!" cried Edgar, caressing her. "Very like
you, Joseph, I should think, when you were her age, judging by your
picture. Is she not, mother?"
"They say so, but I do not see it," answered Mrs. Harrowby primly.
She did not like to hear about this resemblance. There was something
in it that annoyed her intensely, she scarcely knew why, and the more
so because it was true.
"Poor madame used to say so: she saw it from the first, when Fina was
quite a little baby," said Josephine in a low voice.
She was kneeling by her brother's side caressing Fina. She always made
love to the little girl: it was one of her methods of making love to
the father.
"Is she like her mother?" asked Edgar in the same low tones, looking
at the child critically.
"A little," answered Josephine--"not much. It is odd, is it not, that
she should be more like me?"
Just then Fina laid her fresh sweet lips against Edgar's, and he
kissed her with a strange thrill of tenderness.
"Why, Edgar, I never saw you take so to a child before," cried Mrs.
Harrowby, not quite pleasantly; and on Sebastian adding with his
nervous little laugh, which meant the thing it assumed only to play
at, "I declare I shall be quite jealous, Edgar, if you make love to
my little girl like this." Edgar, who had the Englishman's dislike
to observation, save when he offered himself for personal admiration,
laughed too and put Fina away.
But the child had taken a fancy to him, and could scarcely be induced
to leave him. She clung to his hand still, and went reluctantly when
her stepfather called her. It was a very little matter, but men being
weak in certain directions, it delighted Edgar and annoyed Sebastian
beyond measure.
"I hope your elder daughter is well," then said Edgar, emphasizing the
adjective, the vision of Leam as he first saw her, breasting the wind,
filling his eyes with a strange light.
"Leam? Quite well, thanks. But how do you know anything about her?"
was Sebastian's reply.
"I met her yesterday on the moor, and Rover introduced us," answered
Edgar laughing.
"How close she is!" said her father fretfully. "She never told me a
word about it."
"Perhaps she thought the incident too trifling," suggested Edgar, a
little chagrined.
"Oh no, not at all! In a place like North Aston the least thing counts
as an adventure; and meeting for the first time one of the neighbors
is not an incident to be forgotten as if it were of no more value than
meeting a flock of sheep."
Mr. Dundas spoke peevishly. To a man who liked to be amused and who
lived on crumbs this reserved companionship was disappointing and
tiresome.
"Leam is at home making music," said Fina disdainfully. She had caught
the displeased accent of her adopted father, and echoed it.
"Does she make much music?" asked Edgar with his hand under her chin,
turning up her face.
The child shrugged her little shoulders. "She makes a noise," she
said; and those who heard her laughed.
"That is not a very polite way of putting it," said Edgar a little
gravely.
"No," said Josephine.
"You should speak nicely of your sister, my little one," put in
Sebastian.
Fina looked up into his face reproachfully. "You called it a noise
yourself, papa," she said, pouting. "You made her leave off yesterday
as soon as you came in, because you said she made your head ache with
her noise, and set your teeth--something, I don't know what."
"Did I, dear?" he repeated carelessly. "Well, we need not discuss the
subject. I dare say it amuses her to make music, as you call it, and
so we need say no more about it."
"But you did say it was a noise," persisted Fina, climbing on to his
knees and putting her arms round his neck. "And I think it a noise
too."
"Poor Leam's music cannot be very first-rate," remarked Maria, who
was a proficient and played almost as well as a "professional." "Four
years ago she did not know her notes, and four years' practice cannot
be expected to make a perfect pianiste."
"But a person may play very sweetly and yet not be what you call
perfect," said Edgar.
"Do you think so?" Maria answered with a frosty smile. "I do not." Of
what use to have toiled for thirty years early and late at scales
and thorough-bass if a stupid girl like Leam could be allowed to play
sweetly after four years' desultory practice? "Adelaide Birkett, if
you will, plays well," she added; "but Leam, poor child! how should
she?"
"I hope I shall have an opportunity of judging for myself," said
Edgar with his company manner.--"When will you come and dine here,
Dundas?--to-morrow? You and your elder daughter: we shall be very glad
to see you."
He looked to his mother. Mrs. Harrowby had drawn her lips tight, and
wore an injured air doing its best to be resigned. This was
Edgar's first essay in domestic mastership, and it pained her, not
unnaturally.
"Thanks," said Sebastian. "Willingly, if--" looking to Mrs. Harrowby.
"I have no engagement, and Edgar is master now," said that lady.
"And mind that Leam comes too," said Josephine, sharing her favorite
brother's action by design.
"And me," cried Fina.
Whereat they all laughed, which made Fina cry, to be consoled only by
some sweetmeats which Josephine found in her work-basket.
It was agreed, then, that the next day Leam and her father should dine
at the Hill.
"Only ourselves," Edgar said, wanting the excuse of her "being the
only lady" to devote himself to Leam. It was strange that he should
be so anxious to see her nearer, and in company with his sisters and
mother; for after all, why should he? What was she to him, either near
or afar off, alone or in the inner circle of his family?
But when the next day came Mr. Dundas appeared alone. Leam had been
taken with a fit of shyness, pride--who shall say?--and refused to
accept her share of the invitation. Her father made the stereotyped
excuse of "headache;" but headaches occur too opportunely to be
always real, and Leam's to-night was set down to the fancy side of
the account, and not believed in by the hearers any more than by the
bearer.
Edgar raged against her in his heart, and decided that she was not
worth a second thought, while the ladies said in an undertone from
each to each, "How rude!" Maria adding, "How like Leam!" the chain
of condemnation receiving no break till it came to Josephine, whose
patient soul refrained from wrath, and gave as her link, "Poor Leam!
perhaps she is shy or has really a headache."
In spite of his decision that she was not worth a second thought,
the impression which Leam had made on Edgar deepened with his
disappointment, and he became restless and unpleasant in his temper,
casting about for means whereby he might see her again. He cast
about in vain. This fit of shyness, pride, reluctance--who knows
what?--continued with Leam for many days after this. If she went out
at all, she went where she knew she should not be met; and if Edgar
called at Ford House, she was not to be found. She mainly devoted
herself to Fina and some books lent her by Alick, and kept the house
with strange persistency. Perhaps this was because the weather was
bad, for Leam, who could bear wind and frost and noonday sun, could
not bear wet. When it rained she shut herself up in her own room, and
pitied herself for the ungenial skies as she had pitied herself for
some other things before now.
Sitting thus reading one miserably dark, cold, misty day, the child
Fina came in to her with her lessons, which she repeated well. They
were very small and insignificant little lessons, for Leam had a
fellow-feeling for the troubles of ignorance, and laid but a light
hand on the frothy mind inside that curly head. When they were
finished the little one said coaxingly, "Now play with me, Leam! You
never play with me."
"What can I do, Fina?" poor Leam replied.
She had never learnt to play when she was a child: she had never built
towers and towns, made railway trains and coaches with the sofa and
chairs, played at giants through the dark passages and screamed when
she was caught. She had only sat still when mamma was asleep, or when
she was awake played on the zambomba, or listened to her when she told
her of the things of Spain, and made up stories with her dolls that
were less edifying than those of Mother Bunch. She could scarcely,
however, unpack that old box full of waxen puppets, with the one
dressed in scarlet and black, with fishbone horns and a worsted tail,
and a queer clumped kind of foot made of folds of leather, cleft in
the middle, that used to go by the name of "El señor papa." What could
she do?
"Shall I tell you a story?" she then said in a mild fit of
desperation, for story-telling was as little in her way as anything
else.
"Yes, yes, tell me a story!" Fina clapped her chubby hands together
and climbed up into Leam's lap.
"What shall it be about--bears or tigers, or what?" asked Leam
dutifully.
"Tell me about mamma, my own mamma, not Aunty Birkett," said Fina.
Leam shuddered from head to foot. This was the first time the little
girl had mentioned her mother's name to her. Indeed, she did not know
that she had ever heard of her at all--ever known that she had had
a mother; but the servants had talked, and the child's curiosity was
aroused. The dead mother is as much a matter of wondering inquiry
as the angels and the stars; and Fina's imagination was beginning to
bestir itself on the mysteries of childish life.
"I have nothing to tell you about her," said Leam, controlling
herself, though she still shivered.
"Yes, you have--everything," insisted Fina. "Was mamma pretty?"
playing with a corner of her sister's ribbon.
"People said so," answered Leam.
"As pretty as Cousin Addy?" she asked.
"About," said Leam, who thought neither supreme.
"Prettier than you?"
"I don't know: how can I tell?" she answered a little impatiently.
The mother's blood that ran in her, the mother's mould in which she
had been formed, forbade her to put herself below madame in anything;
but, as she was neither vain nor conscious, she found Fina's question
difficult to answer.
"Oh," cried Fina, in a tone of disappointment, "then she could not
have been very pretty."
"I dare say she was, but I do not know," returned Leam.
"And she died?" continued Fina, yawning in a childishly indifferent
manner.
"Yes, she died."
"Why? Who killed her? Did papa?" asked Fina.
Leam's face was very white: "No, not papa."
"Did God?"
"I cannot tell you, Fina," said Leam, to whom falsehoods were
abhorrent and the truth impossible.
"Did you?" persisted Fina with childish obstinacy.
"Now go," said Leam, putting her off her lap and rising from her chair
in strange disorder. "You are troublesome and ask too many questions."
Fina began to cry loudly, and Mr. Dundas, from his library below,
heard her. He came up stairs with his fussy, restless kindness, and
opened the door of the room where his two daughters, of nature and by
adoption, were.
"Heyday! what's all this about?" he cried. "What's the matter, my
little Fina? what are you crying for? Tut, tut! you should not cry
like this, darling; and, Leam," severely, "you should really keep the
child better amused and happy. She is as good as gold with me: with
you there is always something wrong."
Fina ran into his arms sobbing. "Leam is cross," she said. "She will
not tell me who killed mamma."
The man's ruddy face, reddened and roughened with travel, grew white
and pitiful. "God took her away, my darling," he said with a sob.
"She was too good for me, and He took her to live with the angels in
heaven,"
"And Leam's mamma? Is she in heaven too with the angels?" asked Fina,
opening her eyes wide through their tears,
"I hope so," Sebastian answered in an altered voice.
Leam covered her face in her hands; then lifting it up, she said
imploringly, "Papa, do not talk to her of mamma. It is sacrilege."
"I agree with you, Leam," said Mr, Dundas in a steady voice. "We meet
at the same point, but perhaps by different methods."
[TO BE CONTINUED.]
LETTERS FROM SOUTH AFRICA
BY LADY BARKER.
CAPE TOWN, October 16, 1875.
Safe, safe at last, after twenty-four days of nothing but sea
and sky, of white-crested waves--which made no secret of their
intention of coming on board whenever they could or of tossing
the good ship Edinburgh Castle hither and thither like a
child's plaything--and of more deceitful sluggish rolling
billows, looking tolerably calm to the unseafaring eye, but
containing a vast amount of heaving power beneath their slow,
undulating water-hills and valleys. Sometimes sky and sea
have been steeped in dazzling haze of golden glare, sometimes
brightened to blue of a sapphire depth. Again, a sudden change
of wind has driven up serried clouds from the south and east,
and all has been gray and cold and restful to eyes wearied
with radiance and glitter of sun and sparkling water.
Never has there been such exceptional weather, although the
weather of my acquaintance invariably _is_ exceptional. No
sooner had the outlines of Madeira melted and blended into
the soft darkness of a summer night than we appeared to sail
straight into tropic heat and a sluggish vapor, brooding on
the water like steam from a giant geyser. This simmering,
oily, exhausting temperature carried us close to the line.
"What is before us," we asked each other languidly, "if it be
hotter than this? How can mortal man, woman, still less child,
endure existence?" Vain alarms! Yet another shift of the
light wind, another degree passed, and we are all shivering in
winter wraps. The line was crossed in greatcoats and shawls,
and the only people whose complexion did not resemble a
purple plum were those lucky ones who had strength of mind
and steadiness of body to lurch up and down the deck all
day enjoying a strange method of movement which they called
walking.
The exceptional weather pursued us right into the very
dock. Table Mountain ought to be seen--and very often is
seen--seventy miles away. I am told it looks a fine bold bluff
at that distance, Yesterday we had blown off our last pound of
steam and were safe under its lee before we could tell
there was a mountain there at all, still less an almost
perpendicular cliff more than three thousand feet high. Robben
Island looked like a dun-colored hillock as we shot past it
within a short distance, and a more forlorn and discouraging
islet I don't think I have ever beheld. When I expressed
something of this impression to a cheery fellow-voyager, he
could only urge in its defence that there were a great many
rabbits on it. If he had thrown the lighthouse into the
bargain, I think he would have summed up all its attractive
features. Unless Langalibalele is of a singularly
unimpressionable nature, he must have found his sojourn on
it somewhat monotonous, but he always says he was very
comfortable there.
And now for the land. We are close alongside of a wharf,
and still a capital and faithful copy of a Scotch mist wraps
houses, trees and sloping uplands in a fibry fantastic veil,
and the cold drizzle seems to curdle the spirits and energies
of the few listless Malays and half-caste boys and men who are
lounging about. Here come hansom cabs rattling up one after
the other, all with black drivers in gay and fantastic head
and shoulder gear; but their hearts seem precisely as
the hearts of their London brethren, and they single out
new-comers at a glance, and shout offers to drive them a
hundred yards or so for exorbitant sums, or yell laudatory
recommendations of sundry hotels. You must bear in mind that
in a colony every pot-house is a hotel, and generally rejoices
in a name much too imposing to fit across its frontage. These
hansoms are all painted white with the name of some ship in
bright letters on the side, and are a great deal cleaner,
roomier and more comfortable than their London "forbears." The
horses are small and shabby, but rattle along at a good pace;
and soon each cab has its load of happy home-comers and swings
rapidly away to make room for fresh arrivals hurrying up for
fares. Hospitable suggestions come pouring in, and it is as
though it were altogether a new experience when one steps
cautiously on the land, half expecting it to dip away
playfully from under one's feet. A little boy puts my thoughts
into words when he exclaims, "How steady the ground is!"
and becomes a still more faithful interpreter of a wave-worn
voyager's sensations when, a couple of hours later, he demands
permission to get _out_ of his delicious little white bed
that he may have the pleasure of getting _into_ it again. The
evening is cold and raw and the new picture is all blurred and
soft and indistinct, and nothing seems plain except the
kindly grace of our welcome and the
never-before-sufficiently-appreciated delights of space and
silence.
OCTOBER 17.
How pleasant is the process familiarly known as "looking
about one," particularly when performed under exceptionally
favorable circumstances! A long and happy day commenced with a
stroll through the botanic gardens, parallel with which runs,
on one side, a splendid oak avenue just now in all the
vivid freshness of its young spring leaves. The gardens are
beautifully kept, and are valuable as affording a sort of
experimental nursery in which new plants and trees can be
brought up on trial and their adaptability to the soil and
climate ascertained. For instance, the first thing that caught
my eye was the gigantic trunk of an Australian blue-gum tree,
which had attained to a girth and height not often seen in its
own land. The flora of the Cape Colony is exceptionally varied
and beautiful, but one peculiarity incidentally alluded to by
my charming guide struck me as very noticeable. It is that
in this dry climate and porous soil all the efforts of
uncultivated nature are devoted to the _stems_ of the
vegetation: on their sap-retaining power depends the life of
the plant, so blossom and leaf, though exquisitely indicated,
are fragile and incomplete compared to the solidity and
bulbous appearance of the stalk. Everything is sacrificed to
the practical principle of keeping life together, and it is
not until these stout-stemmed plants are cultivated and
duly sheltered and watered, and can grow, as it were, with
confidence, that they are able to do justice to the inherent
beauty of penciled petal and veined leaf. Then the stem
contracts to ordinary dimensions, and leaf and blossom expand
into things which may well be a joy to the botanist's eye.
A thousand times during that shady saunter did I envy my
companions their scientific acquaintance with the beautiful
green things of earth, and that intimate knowledge of a
subject which enhances one's appreciation of its charms as
much as bringing a lamp into a darkened picture-gallery. There
are the treasures of form and color, but from ignorant eyes
more than half their charms and wonders are held back.
A few steps beyond the garden stand the library and natural
history museum. The former is truly a credit to the Colony.
Spacious, handsome, rich in literary treasures, It would
bear comparison with similar institutions in far older and
wealthier places. But I have often noticed in colonies how
much importance is attached to the possession of a good public
library, and how fond, as a rule, colonists are of books. In
a new settlement other shops may be ill supplied, but there
is always a good bookseller's, and all books are to be bought
there at pretty nearly the same prices as in England. Here
each volume costs precisely the same as it would in London,
and it would puzzle ever so greedy a reader to name a book
which would not be instantly handed to him.
The museum is well worth a visit of many more hours than we
could afford minutes, and, as might be expected, contains
numerous specimens of the _Bok_ family, whose tapering horns
and slender legs are to be seen at every turn of one's head.
Models are there also of the largest diamonds, and especially
well copied is the famous "Star of South Africa," a
magnificent brilliant of purest water, sold here originally
for something like twelve thousand pounds, and resold for
double that sum three or four years back. In these few hours I
perceive, or think I perceive, a certain soreness, if one
may use the word, on the part of the Cape Colonists about the
unappreciativeness of the English public toward their produce
and possessions. For Instance, an enormous quantity of wine is
annually exported, which reaches London by a devious route and
fetches a high price, as it is fairly entitled to do from its
excellence. If that same wine were sent direct to a London
merchant and boldly sold as Cape wine, it is said that the
profit on it would be a very different affair. The same
prejudice exists against Cape diamonds. Of course, as in other
things, a large proportion of inferior stones are forced into
the market and serve to give the diamonds that bad name which
we all know is so fatal to a dog. But it is only necessary to
pretend that a really fine Cape diamond has come from Brazil
to ensure its fetching a handsome price, and in that way even
jewelers themselves have been known to buy and give a good
round sum, too, for stones they would otherwise have looked
upon with suspicion. Already I have seen a straw-colored
diamond from "Du Zoit's pan" in the diamond-fields cut in
Amsterdam and set in London, which could hold its own for
purity, radiance and color against any other stone of the same
rare tint, without fear or favor; but of course such gems are
not common, and fairly good diamonds cost as much here as in
any other part of the world.
The light morning mists from that dampness of yesterday have
rolled gradually away as the beautiful sunshine dried the
atmosphere, and by midday the table-cloth, as the colonists
affectionately call the white, fleece-like vapor which so
often rests on their pet mountain, has been folded up and laid
aside in Cloudland for future use. I don't know what picture
other people may have made to their own minds of the shape and
size of Table Mountain, but it was quite a surprise and the
least little bit in the world of a disappointment to me to
find that it cuts the sky (and what a beautiful sky it is!)
with a perfectly straight and level line. A gentle, undulating
foreground broken into ravines, where patches of green _velts_
or fields, clumps of trees and early settlers' houses nestle
cosily down, guides the eye half-way up the mountain. There
the rounder forms abruptly cease, and great granite cliffs
rise, bare and straight, up to the level line stretching ever
so far along. "It is so characteristic," and "You grow to be
so fond of that mountain," are observations I have heard made
in reply to the carping criticisms of travelers, and already
I begin to understand the meaning of the phrases. But you
need to see the mountain from various points of view and under
different influences of sun and cloud before you can take in
its striking and peculiar charms.
On each side of the straight line which is emphatically Table
Mountain, but actually forming part of it, is a bold headland
of the shape one is usually accustomed to in mountains. The
"Devil's Peak" is uncompromising enough for any one's taste,
whilst the "Lion's Head" charms the eye by its bluff form
and deep purple fissures. These grand promontories are not,
however, half so beloved by Cape Colonists as their own Table
Mountain, and it is curious and amusing to notice how the
influence of this odd straight ridge, ever before their eyes,
has unconsciously guided and influenced their architectural
tastes. All the roofs of the houses are straight--straight
as the mountain; a gable is almost unknown, and even the few
steeples are dwarfed to an imperceptible departure from the
prevailing straight line. The very trees which shade the
Parade-ground and border the road in places have their tops
blown absolutely straight and flat, as though giant shears
had trimmed them; but I must confess, in spite of a
natural anxiety to carry out my theory, that the violent
"sou'-easters" are the "straighteners" in their case.
Cape Town is so straggling that it is difficult to form any
idea of its real size, but the low houses are neat and the
streets are well kept and look quaint and lively enough to my
new eyes this morning. There are plenty of people moving about
with a sociable, business-like air; lots of different shades
of black and brown Malays, with pointed hats on the men's
heads: the women encircle their dusky, smiling faces with a
gay cotton handkerchief and throw another of a still brighter
hue over their shoulders. When you add to this that they
wear a full, flowing, stiffly-starched cotton gown of a third
bright color, you can perhaps form some idea of how they
enliven the streets. Swarms of children everywhere, romping
and laughing and showing their white teeth in broadest
of grins. The white children strike me at once as looking
marvelously well--such chubby cheeks, such sturdy fat
legs--and all, black or white, with that amazing air of
independence peculiar to baby-colonists. Nobody seems to mind
them and nothing seems to harm them. Here are half a dozen
tiny boys shouting and laughing at one side of the road, and
half a dozen baby-girls at the other (they all seem to play
separately): they are all driving each other, for "horses" is
the one game here. By the side of a pond sit two toddles of
about three years old, in one garment apiece and pointed hats:
they are very busy with string and a pin; but who is taking
care of them and why don't they tumble in? They are as fat as
ortolans and grin at us in the most friendly fashion.
We must remember that this chances to be the very best moment
of the whole year in which to see the Cape and the dwellers
thereat. The cold weather has left its bright roses on the
children's cheeks, and the winter rains exceptionally having
this year made every blade of grass and leaf of tree to laugh
and sing in freshest green. After the dry, windy summer I am
assured there is hardly a leaf and never a blade of grass to
be seen in Cape Town, and only a little straggling verdure
under the shelter of the mountain. The great want of this
place is water. No river, scarcely a brook, refreshes one's
eye for many and many a league inward. The necessary water for
the use of the town is brought down by pipes from the numerous
springs which trickle out of the granite cliffs of Table
Mountain, but there is never a sufficiency to spare for
watering roads or grassplots. This scarcity is a double loss
to residents and visitors, for one misses it both for use and
beauty.
Everybody who comes here rides or drives round the "Kloof."
That may be; but what I maintain is that very few do it so
delightfully as I did this sunny afternoon with a companion
who knew and loved every turn of the romantic road, who could
tell me the name of every bush or flower, of every distant
stretch of hills, and helped me to make a map in my head of
the stretching landscape and curving bay. Ah! how delicious it
was, the winding, climbing road, at whose every angle a fresh
fair landscape fell away from beneath our feet or a shining
stretch of sea, whose transparent green and purple shadows
broke in a fringe of feathery spray at the foot of bold, rocky
cliffs, or crept up to a smooth expanse of silver sand in a
soft curling line of foam! "Kloof" means simply cleft, and is
the pass between the Table Mountain and the Lion's Head, The
road first rises, rises, rises, until one seems half-way up
the great mountain, and the little straight--roofed white
houses, the green velts or fields and the parallel lines of
the vineyards have sunk below one's feet far, far away. The
mountain gains in grandeur as one approaches it, for the
undulating spurs which run from it down to the sea-shore take
away from the height looking upward. But when these are left
beneath, the perpendicular Walls of granite, rising sheer
and straight up to the bold sky-line, and the rugged, massive
strength of the buttress-like cliffs, begin to gain something
of their true value to the stranger's eye. The most beautiful
part of the road, however, to my taste, is the descent, when
the shining expanse of Camp's Bay lies shimmering in the warm
afternoon haze with a thousand lights and shadows from cloud
and cliff touching and passing over the crisp water-surface.
By many a steep zigzag we round the Lion's Head, and drop once
more on a level road running parallel to the sea-shore, and so
home in the balmy and yet bracing twilight. The midday sun is
hot and scorching even at this time of year, but it is always
cool in the shade, and no sooner do the afternoon shadows grow
to any length than the air freshens into sharpness, and by
sundown one is glad of a good warm shawl.
OCTOBER 18.
Another bright, ideal day, and the morning passed in a
delicious flower-filled room looking over old books and
records and listening to odd, quaint little scraps from the
old Dutch records. But directly after luncheon (and how hungry
we all are, and how delicious everything tastes on shore!) the
open break with four capital horses comes to the door, and we
start for a long, lovely drive. Half a mile or so takes us
out on a flat red road with Table Mountain rising straight up
before it, but on the left stretches away a most enchanting
panorama. It is all so soft in coloring and tone, distinct and
yet not hard, and exquisitely beautiful!
The Blue-Berg range of mountains stretch beyond the great bay,
which, unless a "sou'-easter" is tearing over it, lies glowing
in tranquil richness. This afternoon it is colored like an
Italian lake. Here are lines of chrysoprase, green-fringed,
white with little waves, and beyond lie dark, translucent,
purple depths, which change with every passing cloud. Beyond
these amethystic shoals again stretches the deep blue water,
and again beyond, and bluer still, rise the five ranges
of "Hottentots' Holland," which encircle and complete the
landscape, bringing the eye round again to the nearer cliffs
of the Devil's Peak. When the Dutch came here some two hundred
years ago, they seized upon this part of the coast and called
it Holland, driving the Hottentots beyond the neighboring
range and telling them that was to be their Holland--a name it
keeps to this day. Their consciences must have troubled them
after this arbitrary division of the soil, for up the highest
accessible spurs of their own mountain they took the
trouble to build several queer little square houses called
"block-houses," from which they could keep a sharp look-out
for foes coming over the hills from Hottentots' Holland.
The foes never came, however, and the roofs and walls of
the block-houses have gradually tumbled in, and the
gun-carriages--for they managed to drag heavy ordnance up the
steep hill-side--have rotted away, whilst the old-fashioned
cannon lie, grim and rusty, amid a tangled profusion of wild
geranium, heath and lilies, I scrambled up to one of the
nearest block-houses, and found the date on the dismounted gun
to be more than a hundred years old. The view was beautiful
and the air fresh and fragrant with scent of flowers.
But to return to our drive. I could gaze and gaze for ever at
this lovely panorama, but am told this is the ugliest part of
the road. The road itself is certainly not pretty just here,
and is cloudy with a fine red dust, but this view of sea and
distant hills is enchanting. Soon we get under the lee of
the great mountain, and then its sheltering arms show their
protective power; for splendid oak avenues begin to border the
road all the way, and miniature forests of straight-stemmed
pines and shimmering belts of the ghostly silver tree run up
all the mountain-clefts. Stem and leaf of the silver tree are
all of purest white; and when one gets a gleam of sunlight
on a distant patch of these trees, the effect is quite
indescribable, contrasting, as they do, with green of field
and vineyard. The vines all about here and towards Constantia,
thirteen miles off, are dwarf-plants, and only grow to the
height of gooseberry-bushes. It is a particular species, which
is found to answer best as requiring less labor to train and
cultivate, and is less likely to be blown out of the ground
by the violent "sou'-easters" which come sweeping over the
mountain. These gales are evidently the greatest annoyance
which Cape Colonists have to endure; and although everybody
kindly suggests that I _ought_ to see one, just to understand
what it is like, I am profoundly thankful that I only know it
from their description and my own distinct recollection of the
New Zealand "nor'-westers." Those were hot winds, scorching
and curling up everything, whereas this is rather a cold
breeze, although it blows chiefly in summer. It whirls along
clouds of dust from the red clay roads and fields which
penetrates and clings to everything in the most extraordinary
manner. All along the road the stems and lower branches of the
trees are dyed a deep brick-dust color, and I hear moving and
pathetic stories of how it ruins clothes, not only utterly
spoiling black silk dresses, but staining white petticoats and
children's frocks and pinafores with a border of color exactly
like the ruddle with which sheep are branded. Especially is
it the terror of sailors, rendering the navigation along the
coast dangerous and difficult; for it blends land and water
into one indistinct whirl of vaporous cloud, confusing and
blurring everything until one cannot distinguish shore from
sea.
The vineyards of Constantia originally took their pretty name
from the fair daughter of one of the early Dutch governors,
but now it has grown into a generic word, and you see
"Cloete's Constantia," "Von Reybeck Constantia," written upon
great stone gateways leading by long avenues into the various
vine-growing plantations. It was to the former of these
constantias, which was also the farthest off, that we were
bound that pleasant summer afternoon, and from the time we got
out of the carriage until the moment we re-entered it--all
too soon, but it is a long drive back in the short cold
twilight--I felt as though I had stepped through a magic
portal into the scene of one of Washington Irving's
stories. It was all so simple and homely, so quaint and so
inexpressibly picturesque. The house had stood there for a
couple of hundred years, and looks as though it might last for
ever, with its air of cool, leisurely repose and comfort and
strength.
In the flagged hall stands a huge stalactite some ten feet
high, brought a hundred years ago from caves far away in the
distant ranges. It is shaped something like a Malay's hat,
only the peak tapers to a point about eight feet high. The
drawing-room--though it seems a profanation to call that
venerable stately room by so flippant and modern a name--is
large, ceiled with great beams of cedar, and lighted by lofty
windows, which must contain many scores of small panes of
glass. There were treasures of rarest old china and delfware,
and curious old carved stands for fragile dishes. A wealth of
swinging-baskets of flowers and ferns and bright girl-faces
lighted up the solemn, shady old room, in which we must not
linger, for there is much to see outside. First to the cellar,
as it is called, though it is far from being under ground,
and is, in fact, a spacious stone building with an
elaborately-carved pediment. Here are rows and rows of giant
casks, stretching on either hand into avenues in the black
distance, but these are mere children in the nursery, compared
to those we are going to see. First we must pause in a middle
room full of quaintest odds and ends--crossbows, long whips of
hippopotamus hide, strange rusty old swords and firearms--to
look at a map of South Africa drawn somewhere about 1640. It
hangs on the wall and is hardly to be touched, for the paint
and varnish crack and peel off at a breath. It is a marvel of
accurate geographical knowledge, and is far better filled
in than the maps of yesterday. All poor Livingstone's great
geographical discoveries are marked on it as being--perhaps
only from description--known or guessed at all that long time
ago. It was found impossible to photograph it on account of
the dark shade which age has laid over the original yellow
varnish, but a careful tracing has been made and, I believe,
sent home to the Geographical Society. It is in the long
corridor beyond this that the "stuck-vats" live--puncheons
which hold easily some thousand gallons or so, and are of a
solemn rotundity calculated to strike awe into the beholder's
heart. Here is white constantia, red constantia, young
constantia, middle-aged constantia, and constantia so old as
to be a liqueur almost beyond price. When it has been kept
all these years, the sweetness by which it is distinguished
becomes so absorbed and blended as to be hardly perceptible.
Presently one of the party throws a door suddenly open, and,
behold, we are standing right over a wild wooded glen with a
streamlet running through it, and black washerwomen beating
heaps of white clothes on the strips of shingle. Turtle-doves
are cooing, and one might almost fancy one was back again on
the wild Scotch west coast, until some one else says calmly,
"Look at the ostriches!" Here they come, with a sort of
dancing step, twisting their long necks and snake-like heads
from side to side in search of a tempting pebble or trifle of
hardware. Their wings are slightly raised, and the long fringe
of white feathers rustles softly as they trot easily and
gracefully past us. They are young male birds, and in a few
months more their plumage, which now resembles that of a
turkey-cock, will be jet black, except the wing-feathers. A
few drops of rain are falling, so we hurry back to where the
carriage is standing under some splendid oak trees, swallow a
sort of stirrup-cup of delicious hot tea, and so home again as
fast as we can go.
OCTOBER 19.
It is decided that I must take a drive in a Cape cart; so
directly after breakfast a smart workman-like-looking vehicle,
drawn by a pair of well-bred iron-gray cobs, dashes up under
the portico. There are capital horses here, but they fetch
a good price, and such a pair as these would easily find
purchasers at one hundred and fifty pounds. The cart itself
is very trim and smart, with a framework sort of head, which
falls back at pleasure, and it holds four people easily. It
is a capital vehicle, light and strong and uncommonly
comfortable, but I am warned not to imagine that all Cape
carts are as easy as this one. Away we go at a fine pace
through the delicious sparkling morning sunshine and crisp
air, soon turning off the red high-road into a sandy, marshy
flat with a sort of brackish back-water standing in pools here
and there. We are going to call on Langalibalele, and his
son, Malambuli, who are located at Uitvlugt on the Cape
downs, about four miles from the town. It is a sort of
farm-residence; and considering that the chief has hitherto
lived in a reed hut, he is not badly off, for he has plenty
of room out of doors as well as a good house over his head. We
bump over some strange and rough bits of sandy road and climb
up and down steep banks in a manner seldom done on wheels.
There is a wealth of lovely flowers blooming around, but I
can't help fixing my eyes on the pole of the cart, which is
sometimes sticking straight up in the air, its silver hook
shining merrily in the sun, or else it has disappeared
altogether, and I can only see the horses' haunches. That
is when we are going _down_ hill, and I think it is a more
terrible sensation than when we are playfully scrambling up
some sandy hillock as a cat might.
Here is the location at last, thank Heaven! and there is
Langalibalele sitting in the verandah stoep (pronounced
"stoup") on his haunches on a brick. He looks as comfortable
as if he were in an arm-chair, but it must be a difficult
thing to do if you think seriously of it. The etiquette seems
to be to take no notice of him as we pass into the parlor,
where we present our pass and the people in authority satisfy
themselves that we are quite in rule. Then the old chief walks
quietly in, takes off his soft felt hat and sits himself
down in a Windsor arm-chair with grave deliberation. He is
uncommonly ugly; but when one remembers that he is nearly
seventy years of age, it is astonishing to see how young
he looks. Langalibalele is not a true Kafir at all: he is a
Fingor, a half-caste tribe contemptuously christened by the
Kafirs "dogs." His wool grows in distinct and separate clumps
like hassocks of grass all over his head. He is a large and
powerful man and looks the picture of sleek contentment, as
well he may. Only one of his sons, a good-natured, fine
young man, black as ebony, is with him, and the chief's one
expressed grievance is that none of his wives will come to
him. In vain he sends commands and entreaties to these dusky
ladies to come and share his solitude. They return for answer
that "they are working for somebody else;" for, alas! the only
reason their presence is desired is that they may cultivate
some of the large extent of ground placed at the old chief's
disposal. Neither he nor his stalwart son would dream for
a moment of touching spade or hoe; but if the ladies of the
family could only be made to see their duty, an honest penny
might easily be turned by oats or rye. I gave him a large
packet of sugar-plums, which he seized with childish delight
and hid away exactly like the big monkeys at the Zoo.
By way of a joke, Malambuli pretended to want to take them
away, and the chattering and laughing which followed was
almost deafening. But by and by a gentleman of the party
presented a big parcel of the best tobacco, and the chuckling
old chief made over at once all my sweetmeats "jintly" to
his son, and proceeded to hide away his new treasure. He
was dressed exactly like a dissenting minister, and declared
through the interpreter he was perfectly comfortable. The
impression here seems to be that he is a restless, intriguing
and mischief-making old man, who may consider himself as
having come out of the hornets' nest he tried to stir up
uncommonly well.
We don't want to bump up and down the sandy plain again, so
a lively conversation goes on in Dutch about the road between
one of my gentlemen and somebody who looks like a "stuck-vat"
upon short legs. The dialogue is fluent and lively, beginning
with "Ja, ja!" and ending with "All right!" but it leads to
our hitting off the right track exactly, and coming out at a
lovely little cottage-villa under the mountain, where we rest
and lunch and then stroll about up the hill spurs, through
myrtle hedges and shady oak avenues. Then, before the
afternoon shadows grow too long, we drive off to "Groote
Schuur," the ancient granary of the first settlers, which is
now turned into a roomy, comfortable country-house, perfect
as a summer residence, and securely sheltered from the
"sou'-easters." We approach it through a double avenue of tall
Italian pines, and after a little while go out once more for
a ramble up some quaint old brick steps, and so through a
beautiful glen all fringed and feathered with fresh young
fronds of maiden-hair ferns, and masses of hydrangea bushes,
which must be beautiful as a poet's dream when they are
covered with their great bunches of pale blue blossom. That
will not be until Christmas-tide, and, alas! I shall not be
here to see, for already my three halcyon days of grace are
ended and over, and this very evening we must steam away
from a great deal yet unvisited of what is interesting
and picturesque, and from friends who three days ago were
strangers, but who have made every moment since we landed
stand out as a bright and pleasant landmark on life's highway.
ON SANKOTA HEAD.
"Yay, Jim, there ain't no doubt but Sairy Macy's a mighty nice gal,
but, thee sees, what I'm a-contendin' fur is that she's tew nice fur
thee--that is, not tew nice egzackly, but a leetle tew fine-feathered.
No, not that egzackly, nuther; but she's a leetle tew fine in the
feelin's, an' I don't b'lieve that in the long run thee an' she'll
sort well tugether. Shell git eout o' conceit with thy ways--thee
_ain't_ the pootiest-mannered feller a gal ever see--an' thee'll git
eout o' conceit with hern. Thee'll think she's a-gittin' stuck up, an'
she'll think thee's a-gittin'low-minded. Neow, Jim, my 'dvice is
good; an' ef thee'll take it, an' not go on with this thing no furder,
thee'll both be glad on it arterwa'ds. 'Spesh'ly 's she ain't very
rugged, an' sickly gals had oughter hev rich husbands."
"But, father, Sairy an' me loves o' 'nother."
"Oh, wal, then it's tew late ter say nothin'," said the old man with
a mingled sigh and smile as, raising his basket of quahaugs to his
shoulder, he walked off, pressing his bare feet into the yielding sand
with the firm but clumsy tread of vigorous old age. The rough hat
of plaited straw was pushed back from a brow that with a cultivated
nature would have been considered as evidence of considerable
intellectual power, but, as it was, only showed the probable truth
of the opinion of his neighbors, that "Stephen Starbuck was a shrewd,
common-sense ole feller."
Jim was of a little finer grade than his father, having inherited some
of the traits of his gentle mother, but the young Hercules could by no
means have been mistaken for an Apollo; neither did his somewhat heavy
features bear the expression of unselfish loyalty which would have
given better promise than any mere refinement of features or manner
for the future happiness of Sarah Macy. But she found nothing wanting
in her lover as she stood on the cliff-head gazing down upon him.
Sarah knew that the man she loved was not considered her equal, but
because she loved him she believed him capable of becoming all that
she or others could desire. There is in the world no faith so absolute
as that of a woman in the possibilities of the man she loves. Had
Sarah read of Sir Galahad--but this was in 1779, and the fame of the
search for the Holy Grail had not reached the popular ear--she would
have said to herself, "My Jim is just so pure and holy." Had "her Jim"
been a Royalist during the English Revolution, Prince Rupert's laurels
would not have been unshared. Had Jim been a Puritan--though the
little Quaker maiden did not love Puritans over well, and did not
fancy her Jim as fighting on that side--England's Protector would
not have borne the name of Cromwell. Or if Jim were not one of the
peace-loving Friends, and would enlist in the present struggle for
liberty, the fame of Commodore James Starbuck should soon eclipse that
of Paul Jones.
Not for the world would Sarah have given voice to the heretical
desire, but in her inmost heart was even now a wish that her dear Jim
held religious opinions that would not interfere with his showing
to the country how talented, noble and valiant he was; while the
fair-haired, sunburnt, indolent young Hercules idly gazing out to sea
was fired with no higher ambition for himself than to be able soon
to erect on the Head another small house like that of his father, to
which he might bring "the sweet little girl who loved him, so much."
For Sarah had committed the common mistake of loving women, and had
let Jim see how dear he was to her. So now, instead of dwelling on his
love for her and scheming how he might be worthy of her heart, he was
fully satisfied with himself, and inclined to grumble at Fortune for
not at once bestowing the trifle he asked at her hands.
"Jim, how long's thee goin' ter stan' there? If the water _is_ pretty,
thee can see it any day, so 't ain't worth while to look at it all day
ter a time."
As, the sweet tones floated down the cliff Jim turned lazily to smile
up at the speaker, and, raising his heavy basket of quahaugs, came
leisurely up the steep sand-path, which seemed to shrink from his
weight at every step: "Wal', Sairy, I wa'n't a-thinkin' much o' the
water: I was a-thinkin' o' thee, an' o' what fayther said a little
spell ago."
"What was that, Jim?" Sarah's tone was a little anxious, for she knew
that there was a jealousy among some of the islanders of the facts
that her father had brought with him a few heavy articles of "real
mahogany furnitur," and that her stepmother had always been able to
hire others to do her spinning and weaving, and even to "help her at
odd spells with the heft o' the housework."
"Oh, nothin'," replied Jim, passing his free arm carelessly round the
girl's waist--"othin', undly th' old story 'beout heow we'd best not
merry, 'cause by'm-by thee'll git ter feelin' better nor me."
"But thee don't believe him, Jim? Thee knows better. Thee knows,"
adding this with the sweet and sincere but often sadly mistaken
humility of love--"thee knows thou art better than me. Thou art so
grand and so noble! If folks only knew thee better they would wonder
at thee fur puttin' up wi' me. I wish I could make thee a better wife.
But, Jim, if I ain't very strong, I'm pretty good at contrivin', an'
I don't believe but what I can manage so's to git along a'most as well
as them that's tougher."
"Git along? O' course thee'll git along," answered Jim patronizingly.
"I telled mother th'other day that I didn't cafe ef thee wa'n't 's
strong as Mary Allen: thee was a good deal smarter, an' I'd be willin'
tu resk but what I'd hev as little waitin' on ter dew fur thee 's fur
her. Besides"--and here a gleam of real if shallow affection sprang
from Jim's eyes as he looked down at the loving creature by his
side--"besides, I'd _like_ to take care o' thee, Sairy--I would
indeed."
It is said that the sky has no color of its own--that the deep blue
we think so beautiful is only owing to the atmosphere through which we
view it. To Sarah this very slight expression of her lover's care
for her bore more weight than the most passionate protestations of
affection could have done to a colder nature, for it was colored by
the glowing tints of her own warm love; and when the two parted that
day she carried with her a sweet, satisfying sense of being beloved by
the "best man on the earth" even as she loved him; while he whistled
cheerily over his net-mending, thinking "what a sweet little thing it
was!" "how pretty its eyes were!" and "how kitten-like its ways!" and
only checked his whistling once in a while to wonder whether the day
would ever really come when "Sairy would feel herself better than
him," and to think it also a little hard that old Thomas Macy was "so
sot agin' the match" that he would give his daughter no portion but an
outfit of clothes and household linen. "He might jest's well's not,"
reasoned Jim to himself, "give us a little lift: I guess he would if
Sairy's own mother was alive; but them step-mothers never wants to
give nothin' ter the fust wives' childern." In which opinion Jim did
the second Mrs. Macy much injustice, for it was owing solely to her
influence that Sarah's father had consented to provide his daughter
with even a new dress in which to be married to "that big, lazy boy
o'old Steve Starbuck's."
Meantime, sad, gentle old Mrs. Starbuck had been turning over
many things in her mind. She felt her son's defects; she knew that
warm-hearted, imaginative Sarah Macy would be doing a foolish thing to
marry Jim--as foolish a thing as in her inmost heart she felt, rather
than acknowledged, that she herself had done when she married Jim's
father. But the mother-heart longed that her son should grow to be
what she desired (and what poor Sarah thought he already was), and she
hoped much from the elevating influence of so good a wife.
So, as she sat knitting, while Jim and his father sat, hats on heads
and pipes in mouths, mending their nets, old Mrs. Starbuck had "made a
plan." "Father," said, she at last, "I've be'n thinkin'--"
"Yay," replied the old man gruffly but not unkindly--"yay, I 'spect
so. Thee's pooty nigh allus a-thinkin' o' suthin. What is it neow?
Eout with it!"
"I've be'n thinkin' that Jim's all the child we've got--"
"Wal, yay. Hain't had no other--not's I knows on. What o' that?"
"Well, I was a-thinkin' that, that bein' so, an' Jim an' Sairy
thinkin' so much o' 'nother, it wa'n't o' no use fur them ter keep
waitin' along year eout an' year in fur a chance tu keep house by
'emselves. They'd best git married right off an' come an' live along
o' us."
"W'y, ole woman!"
"W'y, mother!"
"Yay; I hear both on ye," said the gentle old mother with a half
smile. "I s'posed likely ye'd think strange on't at fust; but ye
h'ain't no need ter, fur it's a sens'ble thing ter dew, an' yell see't
so when ye've thought on't a spell: see if ye don't."
So well was the proposal liked that very soon the simple ceremony of
the Friends made James and Sarah husband and wife; and for a while all
seemed happiness in the humble cottage on the cliff--cottage so humble
that it scarcely deserved even that lowly name.
Sarah Macy's father owned one of the largest dwellings on Nantucket--a
two-story "double house" with two rooms on each side of a broad hall
running through the house from front to rear. On one side of this hall
was the "best bedroom," ghostly with tightly-closed white shutters
and long white dimity curtains to the "four-poster" and shining white
sanded floor, and the "best-room," terrible in its grandeur of cold
white walls, straight hard sofa, "spider-legged" table, grenadier-like
chairs and striped woolen carpet underlaid with straw. In the rear, on
the other side of the hall, was the kitchen with its big brick oven,
its yawning fireplace overhung with corpulent iron pots or shining
copper kettles depending from numerous gallows-like cranes; with its
glittering copper, brass and pewter utensils arrayed on snowy-shelves;
with its spotless tables, Its freshly-sanded floor and its
heavily-beamed, whitewashed ceiling, from which hung many a bunch of
savory herbs or string of red pepper-pods or bunch of seed-corn, or
perhaps even a round-backed ham, to get a little browner in the smoke
that would sometimes pour out from the half-ignited mass of peat. In
front of the kitchen was the "living-room," in one corner of which
stood a carved high-post bedstead--glory of the Macys and envy of
their neighbors--with its curtains of big figured chintz, brown
sunflowers sprawling over a white ground, drawn aside in the daytime
to display the marvelous patchwork of the quilt beneath. Fuel was
scarce even then on the sandy isle; and economy compelled Mr. and
Mrs. Macy to make use of this living-room as a bedchamber also, since
Thomas Macy confessed to "bein rather tender," and to liking a warm
room to sleep In, though his neighbors often insinuated that he was
killing himself by the Indulgence. And indeed the heat must have been
stifling when we consider the size of the fireplace, nine feet wide by
four deep, with a yawning throat, through which the rain poured freely
down on stormy nights, putting out the best arranged mass of coals,
ashes and peat, and, in spite of the little gutter purposely made
round the broad brick hearth, sometimes overflowing and drenching
a portion of the neat rag carpet, in which, with true Quaker
consistency, no gay-colored fragment had been allowed a place.
In striking contrast to all this magnificence was the lowly home to
which James Starbuck brought his happy bride. This little house was
"double" also--that Is, it was entered in the centre by a small square
passage just big enough for the outer door to swing in. On one side
of this entry was a tiny parlor, as dismal as rag carpet, fireless
hearth, dingy paper and dark-green paper shades to the small windows
could make it. On the other side of the entry was the tiny and cold
bedroom of the senior Starbucks. In the centre of the house rose a
massive chimney, big enough to retain all the heat from a dozen fires.
Across the rear of parlor, chimney and bedroom ran the long, low
sunshiny kitchen. At one end of this certain ladder-like stairs
conducted to the loft, which had served Jim for a "roosting-place"
ever since he had grown big enough to be trusted o' nights so far
away from his mother. On Sarah's advent into the family the
dismal "best-room" was made habitable by the addition of a
"four-poster"--which Mrs. Starbuck senior regretted was only of
cherry-wood and not carved--and by sundry little feminine contrivances
of Sarah's own.
I said that for a time all seemed to go on happily in this humble
home. And the seeming would have been reality had Jim possessed the
faith in his wife which she had in him. True, he loved and believed in
her after his fashion, and his mother was a strong ally on his wife's
side; but Jim had one fatal weakness of character. He resented the
slightest look that was anything but simple admiration on the part of
his wife. A strong nature is not afraid of censure, but a weak one,
pleading sensitiveness, is easily roused to small retaliations,
repaying what is good in intention with what is evil. Jim, as his
father had truly told him, was "not the pootiest-mannered feller a gal
ever see," and in the daily home-life this became apparent to Sarah
as it had never been in all the years they had been near neighbors.
Naturally, she wished her husband to be pleasing to her father, and at
last ventured to hint, as delicately as she could, at various little
points in which improvements might be made. At first Jim did not seem
very restless under such reproofs, given, as they were, with many
a loving kiss and winsome look; but as months went on his wife's
caresses were more carelessly received, and her hinted corrections
with more of resentment. One evening stately old Thomas Macy had
"happened in," and Jim had greatly grieved his wife by his curt,
uncivil manner to her father. After he had gone Sarah spoke in a low
tone and kindly as always, but with more spirit than she had ever
before manifested or felt, of her husband's disrespectful ways to the
aged.
For a moment after his wife had ceased, Jim sat with his hat
pulled closely over his eyes, fiercely biting into the apple he was
eating--biting and throwing the bits into the glowing mass of peat on
the hearth. Then he sprang to his feet, exclaiming, "I see! It's all
come true, what ev'rybody said. Thee thinks thee an' thy folks is
better'n me an' my folks, an' keeps all the time a-naggin' on me. I
wish I'd merried Mary Allen! I won't stan' no more o' this talk. If I
ain't to be maaster o' my own house I won't stay in't." (The house was
his father's, but angry men never think of such trifles.) And waxing
pitiful of himself, he continued in a broken and injured tone, "The
bed o' the sea's the bes' place fur a man whose own wife's got tew big
feelin' ter put up wi' his ways."
With this dignified burst of eloquence the angry fellow flung himself
out of the house, letting in at the door as he went a dash of cold,
sleety rain and a gust of wind that put out the flickering tallow dip
that was enabling Sarah to take the last stitches in the tiny
white slip that now fell from her fingers. Too sorely wounded for
resentment, too fond of her husband to wish even his parents to see
him in the light in which he was now revealed to her, Sarah silently
stooped to recover her work, and as she did so her hand was met under
the table by a sympathizing pressure from that of her mother-in-law.
This was too much, and, laying her head in the elder woman's lap,
poor Sarah wept without restraint; while the mother sorrowfully and
tenderly stroked her soft brown tresses. The father, quietly puffing
at his pipe, seemed to take no notice, only now and then glancing with
kindly eye covertly from under his hat-brim at the two grieving women.
Silently, but for the roaring of the wind and surf and fitful dashing
of the rain, the hours passed on till the high clock in the kitchen
corner sharply struck eleven. This was a late hour for those times,
and a faint fear began to come upon them all. Could it be that Jim had
really meant what he said? "Had he--" And the two women looked blankly
at each other. Not a word had been uttered, but each felt the other's
dread.
The father rose and said with a well-affected yawn, "Guess likely
Jim's went deown ter Uncle Will'amses, an' they thought as 't's so
stormy he'd bes' not come back. So guess I'll jest go eout ter the
shed and git some more peat, fur ter keep the fire."
Thus leaving the mother and wife partially reassured, the old
father slipped out and down the track, cut deeply in the sand by the
one-horse carts, to "Uncle Will'amses," as fast as the storm would
permit. But no Jim had been seen there; and still more anxiously the
stout old man fought his way back against winds that seemed strong"
enough to blow him like a feather over the cliff's edge, and against
the spray which shot up from the beach below, smitten by the sounding
surf, clear over the high top of Sankota Head.
Reaching his door during a brief lull in the wind, he heard faintly
but distinctly the booming of guns fired by a ship in distress. "It
mus' be some vessil on the shoals, an' mos' likely Jim's heard her an'
got some o' th' other boys, an' 's went off in 's boat ter help her.
Poor soul!" With this comforting reflection the father cheered the
watchers inside, who had grown fearfully anxious, as the clock had
long ago struck for midnight.
"We mus' build a fire on the Head ter light 'em," said the old man.
"There hed oughter be a light'us here, but 's there ain't none, we
mus' dew the bes' we kin,"
So saying, he harnessed the horse--almost as old as himself--and with
the aid of the two women loaded the sled with dry wood and started
with it to the cliff, while the mother and daughter followed behind as
best they might, struggling to keep alive without being set on fire
by the coals in the iron pot which they carried between them. It was
a weary half mile, wind, spray and rain all contending against the
feeble folk who had come out to help back to land and home the brave
fellows who had gone to succor the distressed. They made all the more
sure that this was the case, because Jim's new boat, the pride and joy
of his life, was not to be found at the spot where he had only that
day drawn, it high above the reach of even such a storm as this, ready
for building over it on the morrow its winter house of pine-boughs and
turf.
At last a fire was kindled; and leaving the women to watch it, old
Stephen took several weary trips back to the cottage after fuel,
making serious inroads upon a stock at the best not too large to meet
the demands of the coming winter. The flame, fanned by the blast even
more than dashed by the spray and rain, sprang upward, casting its
ruddy lances of light backward over the sandy downs, destitute even
then of tree or shrub to break the force of the gale, and forward over
the frothing white tops and deep, black troughs of waves that seemed
to the excited eyes of the watching women like so many separate fiends
leaping upward and stretching out white hands to clutch helpless
victims and hurry them to the hell beneath. And all the while the
surf thundered at the foot of the trembling cliff. No form could be
discovered through the darkness beyond the near neighborhood of the
shore; and but for the flash of the gun, which was seen continually,
though its sound was but seldom heard above the surf and the wind, the
watchers would have thought there was no ship near.
By and by the rain ceased, but there was no moon, and impenetrable
wind-clouds still hid the stars. Out through the blackness of the
night the flame-light quivered in long, bright streams over the
endless lines of ever-advancing waves, but revealed to the watchers
no ship, no boat, no tokens even of wreck, only the ceaseless reaching
upward of the beckoning white hands; and the wind bore no sound, save
at intervals the dull distant boom of the cannon. But ever the solemn
surf thundered on the beach below, and the sand-cliff trembled and
crumbled beneath its resounding blows.
The old man, who, with a seaman's owl-like eyesight, kneeled intently
gazing out through the darkness in the direction of the flash,
suddenly exclaimed, "I don't un'erstan' it! That air ship hadn't
oughter be in 'stress off where she is. She ain't on no shoal, nor
nothin'. She's jest a-lyin' tew. An' I don't see no signs o' no boats
nuther; an's fur's I kin see, them folks is a firin' off that air gun
jest fur the musicalness on't. Blast 'em! Come, gals: we mought as
well be walkin' along hum as ter stop a-yawpin' here in the wind an'
spray, a-burnin' up the winter's kindlin' fur folks 'at's a-foolin' on
us. 'Spesh'ly as I think she's a Britisher. Blast her!"
The old Quaker was not accustomed to use strong language of any sort,
but evidently the human nature in him was so powerful in this instance
that he could not help indulging in the most emphatic admissible
invective.
But the mother and wife were not so easily satisfied. In their eyes
the strange ship and all on board her were not of as much consequence
as the unworthy missing Jim, whose fate they associated with it.
Jim's boat, they said, was gone. No one could have taken her but Jim
himself. He would never have put out on such a night as this save to
go to the help of the distressed ship; and if he was on the water, the
light burning on Sankota Head would guide him safely back. So, in the
midst of spray and wind, the three kneeled on the cliff and kept the
blaze alight till the rising dawn made it useless, when, to the dismay
of the watchers, the ship hoisted sail and bore away. She showed no
colors, but the old islander, once a whaler, declared that she was a
British man-o'-war.
But where was Jim? The unanswering surf still boomed at the foot of
the cliff, though the height of the waves was rapidly diminishing, and
the water was gradually assuming the peculiarly bland expression that
often comes after a storm, reminding one of the cat that has "eaten
the canary," but there was no sign of incoming boat or men.
Chilled to the bone with the wind and cold sea-spray of the November
night, and to the heart with sorrow and disappointment, the three
returned to the lonely house. Running to meet them came Mary Allen,
breathlessly crying, "Where's Eben and Jim?"
Poor Sarah could not answer, but the brave old mother, a veteran in
sorrows, replied with trembling lips, "We don't know anythin' o' thy
brother, Mary; an' Jim hain't b'en hum sence las' night. His boat's
gone, an' we thought he might ha' went out to help the ship that was
a-firin' all night. But she's sailed off this mornin' all right; an'
father, he says she was a Britisher an' undly a-firin' ter fool us
folks. So I don't know nothin' about it," uttering the last words in a
drearily hopeless tone that gave them exceeding pathos.
For a moment Mary stood in dismay; then she cried wildly, "Oh, they're
drowned, they're drowned! Jim come deown ter eour heouse las' night
a-sayin' he'd heard the firin' o' a ship in 'stress, an' askin' Eb
ter go with him an' help him git his boat eout, an' telled me ter run
along deown to Zack Tumnaydoo's An' ax Zack an' Ellery ter go with
'em. An' I did, an' that's the las' anybody's seen o' any one on 'em.
Oh dear! oh dear!" And wringing her hands, the sobbing girl ran back
as quickly as she had come to impart to her mother and sisters the
full extent of her evil tidings.
The cold, sad, desolate weeks and months that now rolled slowly on
are to this day remembered on Nantucket as those of the "hard winter."
Provisions were scarce, fuel was difficult to obtain, the harbor
was frozen over, so that few fish could be taken there, and all
communication with "the main" was cut off by British cruisers. In
January the cherished old horse was killed because there was no longer
hay to feed him, and even oats were "too precious to be fed to dumb
beasts." In February the stalwart old Stephen lay grimly down to die,
saying pityingly, "It's time, gals: I can't dew ye no more good by
stayin'; an' I'm so tired."
The day succeeding the silent funeral, where two women had dropped the
few tears that were left them to shed, good old Thomas Macy came and
took his daughter and her mother to his own home. And in windy, still
frozen March the wail of a tiny baby was heard in the house.
Under all the trouble the two brave women made no moan. Silently
clinging together, never losing sight of each other for more than a
few moments at a time, they yet said nothing of their greatest grief,
that Jim should have disappeared with such unworthy words on his lips
and thoughts in his heart, until, a few days after the baby's birth,
Sarah said to her mother, "I know he's not dead. If he'd ha' died,
he'd ha' come back and told me he was sorry. Fur I dew think he'd be
sorry. Don't thee, mother?" And the mother nodded assent and smiled
through her tears.
But, in truth, they had a more substantial reason than poor Sarah's
wistful fancy for thinking that Jim was living. When the ice broke up,
his boat was found in a little cove, where it had floated right-side
up, without any serious injury except the carrying away of the sails.
Of course this discovery roused new hopes in the homes of the missing
men. It did not "stand to reason" that four big strong, temperate
young fellows, brought up to the hardy, amphibious island-life, had
all fallen overboard, any more than it "stood to sense" that the boat
had upset and then righted of itself. Besides, "none of the boy's
corpuses had ever floated up." So the Tucketers took courage and
felt sure that, whatever had become of the missing men, they were not
drowned.
But still the slow months came and went, till the summer and autumn
and another winter had passed by; and patient old Rachel Starbuck grew
daily a little quieter and a little grayer; and the brave young wife
grew a little stronger to bear, but not a whit less loving or prone to
suffer, and stately old Thomas Macy grew daily more gentle and pitying
in his ways as he looked long at the winsome face of the happy, wee
grandchild, that throve and crowed and tried to utter sweet little
hesitating words as gayly as if the world had never a sin, a sorrow or
a weakness in it.
One day Sarah and her mother had carried the baby down to the small
cottage at the back of the cliff, whither they went to attend to
some little household matter; for, although they did not mention the
subject, even to themselves, they still kept all there in readiness
against Jim's coming home. Here, in the soft May sunshine, the
red-frocked baby was sitting on the green turf step, playing with
some "daffies," first of the season, which Sarah had plucked from the
little garden in the rear. The mother and daughter were in the house,
when both were alarmed by a scream from the usually merry child. A man
had it closely clasped in his arms, kissing it and calling it between
half-choked sobs his "own pretty, pretty baby." The man was thin,
pock-marked, bald, and clad in a ragged uniform of a British sailor,
but to the faithful, longing eyes of mother and wife there was no
mistaking their Jim.
It was long ere the story could be told, but at last they learned that
on that sad November night Jim and his companions had gone out to the
relief of the signaling ship. She was, as old Stephen had conjectured,
a British man-o'-war. Being short of hands, and having on board as
pilot a renegade native of the island, who knew where a ship could
"lay-to" in safety, she had taken advantage of the storm to attract
strong men within the range of her guns, then to command them to
surrender, and thus to impress them into "His Majesty's service" as
"able seamen."
For a long time Jim had managed to keep alive his resentful feelings
toward his wife, accusing of being the source of all his misfortunes
the poor little woman who was loving and longing so sincerely for him.
But when illness came he could hold out no longer. "I made up my mind
then," said he, "that if ever I got hum agin, I'd go deown on my knees
an' ax pardin' o' my Sairy."
But she had never been angry, and was now only too thankful that Jim
and his friends had escaped safely.
"Ah!" said Jim in telling his adventures, "we hed a clus run on 't,
Sairy, but thee'd better believe that air British navy's a fust-rate
place fur larnin' a feller ter know when he's well off. An' Sairy,
when I longed so fur thee an' mother, an' thought o' what a wretch I
was to speak so ter the dearest little woman in the world, I c'u'd see
that I hadn't knowed when I was well off."
Jim's was not an unselfish kind of repentance, but it was the best it
was in his nature to offer, and Sarah had long ago learned that her
Jim was not the saint and hero she had once dreamed, but only a weak
and common-place man; and she asked for nothing higher from him. To
his best she had a right, and with that she was content, smiling on
her husband with eyes full of a love as tender and true as when in the
old days she had gazed down upon her lover from the cliff-head, while
the mother laid her hand softly on his scanty hair, and said solemnly,
"May God keep thee thus, my son!" adding, after a moment's pause,
"But I wish thy fayther was here to see." And a tender silence for
the memory of the rough but kindly-natured old man fell over them all;
while the baby, reconciled to the stranger, poked her little fingers
in the marks on his face, and cried because she could not get them
off.
ETHEL C. GALE.
AT THE OLD PLANTATION.
TWO PAPERS.--II.
The eastern sky is just beginning to assume that strange neutral tint
which tells of the approaching dawn when we open the heavy hall door
and step out into the crisp, frosty air. No moonlight hunting for me,
with the cold, deceitful light making phantom pools of every white
sand-patch in the road, and ghostly logs and boulders of every
wavering shadow. You are always gathering up your reins for leaps
over imaginary fence-panels, which your horse goes through like a
nightmare, and always unprepared for the real ones, which he clears
when you are least expecting it. If the cry bears down on you, and you
rein up for a view, the fox is sure to dodge by invisibly under cover
of some dark little bay, and you get home too late for a morning nap
and too early for the breakfast, which you have been longing after for
the last two hours. Then, too, your horse has lost his night's rest,
and will be jaded for two days in consequence. No: the time to throw
the dogs off for a fox-hunt is that weird hour which the negroes
significantly call "gray-day:" it is the surest time to strike a
trail, and by the time Reynard begins to dodge and double there will
be plenty of light to ride by and to get a good view. If the fox gets
away or the cover is drawn without a find, you are always sure of
having your spirits raised by the cheerful sunrise: by the time you
get home, tired and spattered, the ladies are down stairs ready to
make pretty exclamations over the brush or to chaff you pleasantly
for your want of success; and then there is just time to get your hair
brushed and your clothes changed before the mingled aromas of fried
sausage and old Java put the keen edge on your already whetted
appetite.
A ride across country after a rattling pack of English hounds on
a thoroughbred hunter with a field of red-coated squires is an
experience which few hunters on this side of the water have ever
enjoyed, but with the incidents of which every reader of English
novels is familiar. The chase of the red fox in Maryland or Virginia
has some features in common with the British national sport, but that
of the gray fox in the more southern States differs materially from
both. The latter animal is smaller and possessed of less speed and
endurance than his more northern brother, but he is far more common
and quite as cunning. He makes shorter runs, but over very different
ground, always keeping in the woods and dodging about like a rabbit,
so that a different style of horse and a different method of riding
are required for his capture. There is no risk of breaking your neck
over a five-barred gate or a stone wall, but you may be hung in a
grapevine, or knocked out of the saddle by a low limb, or have your
knee scraped against a tree-trunk. It is true you may catch your fox
in twenty minutes, and three hours is an extraordinary run, but then
you may catch four or five between daylight and ten o'clock of an
autumn morning.