And Paul has taken the pen, too, and in his extraordinary effort to make
a big P, has made a very big blot. And Jamie writes under it—“This is
Paul’s work, pa; but he says it’s a love blot, only he loves you ten
hundred times more.”
And after your return Jamie will insist that you should go with him to
the brook, and sit down with him upon a tuft of the brake, to fling off
a line into the eddies, though only the nibbling roach are sporting
below. You have instructed the workmen to spare the clumps of
bank-willows, that the wood-duck may have a covert in winter, and that
the Bob-o’-Lincolns may have a quiet nesting place in the spring.
Sometimes your wife—too kind to deny such favor—will stroll with you
along the meadow banks, and you pick meadow daisies in memory of the old
time. Little Carry weaves them into rude chaplets, to dress the forehead
of Paul, and they dance along the greensward, and switch off the
daffodils, and blow away the dandelion seeds, to see if their wishes are
to come true. Jamie holds a buttercup under Carry’s chin, to find if she
loves gold; and Paul, the rogue, teases them by sticking a thistle into
sister’s curls.
The pony has hard work to do under Carry’s swift riding—but he is fed by
her own hand, with the cold breakfast rolls. The nuts are gathered in
time, and stored for long winter evenings, when the fire is burning
bright and cheerily—a true, hickory blaze—which sends its waving gleams
over eager, smiling faces, and over well-stored book shelves, and
portraits of dear, lost ones. While from time to time, that wife, who is
the soul of the scene, will break upon the children’s prattle, with the
silver melody of her voice, running softly and sweetly through the
couplets of Crabbe’s stories, or the witchery of the Flodden tale.
Then the boys will guess conundrums, and play at fox and geese; and
Tray, cherished in his age, and old Milo petted in his dotage, lie side
by side upon the lion’s skin before the blazing hearth. Little Tomtit
the goldfinch sits sleeping on his perch, or cocks his eye at a sudden
crackling of the fire for a familiar squint upon our family group.
But there is no future without its straggling clouds. Even now a shadow
is trailing along the landscape.
It is a soft and mild day of summer. The leaves are at their fullest. A
southern breeze has been blowing up the valley all the morning, and the
light, smoky haze hangs in the distant mountain gaps, like a veil on
beauty. Jamie has been busy with his lessons, and afterward playing with
Milo upon the lawn. Little Carry has come in from a long ride—her face
blooming, and her eyes all smiles and joy. The mother has busied herself
with those flowers she loves so well. Little Paul, they say, has been
playing in the meadow, and old Tray has gone with him.
But at dinner time Paul has not come back.
“Paul ought not to ramble off so far,” I say.
The mother says nothing, but there is a look of anxiety upon her face
that disturbs me. Jamie wonders where Paul can be, and he saves for him
whatever he knows Paul will like—a heaping plateful. But the dinner hour
passes and Paul does not come. Old Tray lies in the sunshine by the
porch.
Now the mother is indeed anxious. And I, though I conceal this from her,
find my fears strangely active. Something like instinct guides me to the
meadow; I wander down the brook-side, calling—Paul—Paul! But there is no
answer.
All the afternoon we search, and the neighbors search; but it is a
fruitless toil. There is no joy that evening; the meal passes in
silence; only little Carry, with tears in her eyes, asks—if Paul will
soon come back? All the night we search and call—the mother even braving
the night air, and running here and there, until the morning finds us
sad and despairing.
That day—the next—cleared up the mystery, but cleared it up with
darkness. Poor little Paul!—he has sunk under the murderous eddies of
the brook! His boyish prattle, his rosy smiles, his artless talk, are
lost to us forever!
I will not tell how nor when we found him, nor will I tell of our
desolate home, and of _her_ grief—the first crushing grief of her life.
* * * * *
The cottage is still. The servants glide noiseless, as if they might
startle the poor little sleeper. The house seems cold—very cold. Yet it
is summer weather; and the south breeze plays softly along the meadow
and softly over the murderous eddies of the brook.
* * * * *
Then comes the hush of burial. The kind mourners are there; it is easy
for them to mourn! The good clergyman prays by the bier: “Oh, Thou, who
didst take upon Thyself human woe, and drank deep of every pang in life,
let Thy spirit come and heal this grief, and guide toward that better
Land, where justice and love shall reign, and hearts laden with anguish
shall rest for evermore!”
Weeks roll on, and a smile of resignation lights up the saddened
features of the mother. Those dark mourning robes speak to the heart
deeper and more tenderly than ever the bridal costume. She lightens the
weight of your grief by her sweet words of resignation: “Paul,” she
says, “God has taken our boy!”
Other weeks roll on. Joys are still left—great and ripe joys. The
cottage smiling in the autumn sunshine is there; the birds are in the
forest boughs; Jamie and little Carry are there; and she, who is more
than them all, is cheerful and content. Heaven has taught us that the
brightest future has its clouds—that this life is a motley of lights and
shadows. And as we look upon the world around us, and upon the thousand
forms of human misery, there is a gladness in our deep thanksgiving.
A year goes by, but it leaves no added shadow on our hearthstone. The
vines clamber and flourish; the oaks are winning age and grandeur;
little Carry is blooming into the pretty coyness of girlhood, and Jamie,
with his dark hair and flashing eyes, is the pride of his mother.
There is no alloy to pleasure, but the remembrance of poor little Paul.
And even that, chastened as it is with years, is rather a grateful
memorial that our life is not all here than a grief that weighs upon our
hearts.
Sometimes, leaving little Carrie and Jamie to their play, we wander at
twilight to the willow tree beneath which our drowned boy sleeps calmly
for the great Awaking. It is a Sunday, in the week-day of our life, to
linger by the little grave—to hang flowers upon the head-stone, and to
breathe a prayer that our little Paul may sleep well in the arms of Him
who loveth children.
And her heart, and my heart, knit together by sorrow, as they had been
knit by joy—a silver thread mingled with the gold—follow the dead one to
the land that is before us, until at last we come to reckon the boy as
living in the new home which, when this is old, shall be ours also. And
my spirit, speaking to his spirit, in the evening watches, seems to say
joyfully—so joyfully that the tears half choke the utterance—“Paul, my
boy, we will be _there_!”
And the mother, turning her face to mine, so that I see the moisture in
her eye, and catch its heavenly look, whispers softly—so softly that an
angel might have said it—“Yes, dear, we will be THERE!”
* * * * *
The night had now come, and my day under the oaks was ended. But a
crimson belt yet lingered over the horizon, though the stars were out.
A line of shaggy mist lay along the surface of the brook. I took my gun
from beside the tree, and my shot-pouch from its limb, and, whistling
for Carlo—as if it had been Tray—I strolled over the bridge, and down
the lane, to the old house under the elms.
I dreamed pleasant dreams that night—for I dreamed that my reverie was
real.
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Transcriber’s note:
○ Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected.
○ Typographical errors were silently corrected.
○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only
when a predominant form was found in this book.