WINTER GLOOM.
Andrew and Mary Goldsmith left their old home in Apley, and went north
to take charge of Sophy's son. It was a great change in the lives of
people so old. Instead of their small, snug kitchen, and their shop,
with its outlook on the familiar street, they dwelt in large,
wainscoted rooms, separated by long, wandering passages and galleries,
through which the autumn winds moaned incessantly, and from the windows
they saw only the deserted moorland. The caretakers, who had been
accustomed to have entire charge of the place, remained in it as
gardener and cook; and a groom and housemaid had been hired for the
extra work, caused, not by Martin, but by the tutor who had undertaken
to teach him the bare elements of learning and the simplest customs of
civilized society. Mary Goldsmith found herself at the head of this
little establishment, not without some feelings of pride in the
importance of her position; and Andrew was installed as master and
guardian of his grandson. It was a great change from their homely life
at Apley. Yet, with all the discomfort of the change, there was a
lurking sense of pleasure in being the nearest of kin to the heir of
the estate.
On the other hand, Martin was a source of constant anxiety and
mortification to them both; but Andrew took the mortification most to
heart. He loved his uncouth barbarian, who was Sophy's son, with a
very deep though troubled love. There could be no interchange of ideas
between them, except by gesture: for Andrew was too old to learn
Martin's stammering patois, and Martin appeared quite unable to
recollect the few English words his tutor tried to fix upon his memory.
The tutor, who knew Italian well, though he was not versed in the
patois of the frontier between Italy and Austria, soon learned Martin's
very limited vocabulary, and also his narrow range of mental
sensations. But between Andrew and his grandson there was no means
whatever of communication by speech. The old man would sit patiently
for hours watching the dull, coarse face of the clumsy peasant, whose
favorite postures were lying huddled up on the ground, or squatting on
his heels with his knees almost on a level with his ears. Sometimes he
fancied his grandson responded to his wistful gaze with a gleam of
intelligent affection in his eyes; and now and then Martin would offer
him a pipe if he was not provided with one. There was a certain amount
of friendliness in this act.
Martin's tutor conscientiously spent a regular number of hours in
attempting to teach him; and he did his best to make him sit down to
the table at meals and take his food like other people. But Martin was
both obstinate and obtuse. In his childhood he had not been permitted
to imitate the children about him; and the imitative faculties
continued dormant in his manhood.
Occasionally, to please Philip, he had consented to sit down with him
and Hugh to a meal, and tried to do what they told him, but for nobody
else was it worth while to take so much trouble. He was learning, with
the slow and weary progress of an adult, the difficult accomplishment
of writing, his crooked and frost-bitten fingers traveling laboriously
over the paper, forming characters he did not understand. He was
learning, a little more easily, how to read; but here again his
progress was hindered by his want of comprehension. For, wisely or
not, he was being taught in English, and, as yet, English was a tongue
without meaning to him.
The best time for Andrew was when Martin accompanied him on the moors.
The old man was still hale and strong, and could pass all the hours of
the day out of doors, provided he was not always in movement. Martin,
too, was only happy in the open air, and he liked lounging about,
sitting for long spells under some moss-grown rock, as he had been
accustomed to do when he was tending Chiara's herds. Like savages, he
was capable of prolonged and extreme muscular exertion when necessary;
but necessity alone could drive him to make any effort, excepting when
a wild impulse possessed him to try his great physical strength.
Usually he was content to loiter about, with a pipe in his mouth and
his hands in his pockets, the impersonation of sluggish laziness. For
hours together these strange kinsmen--the vigorous old man, with his
hot heart of indignant love beating in his time-worn frame, and his
grandson, with all his faculties and affections undeveloped--strolled
about the wide moorland, unable to exchange a word, and communicating
with one another only by looks and gestures.
To Martin, all that had happened to him had the incoherence and marvel
of a dream. Chiara's death had first broken the melancholy monotony of
his life, and immediately followed this extraordinary change in his
circumstances. He accepted it, but he could not comprehend it. He
found himself supplied with all he wanted, without any effort of his
own; he no longer worked for many long hours for coarse food in scanty
quantities, nor was he roughly roused from his sleep at the first dawn
of the morning. No voice spoke in angry tones to him, and no face
scowled upon him. Yet he did not enjoy the dainty meals set before him
at regular and stated intervals, instead of being snatched and devoured
with a watchful, and anxious, and savage glee. He was called upon to
submit to incomprehensible restraints upon all his actions. Moreover,
he was sensible that there was a vast difference between himself and
these strange people who surrounded him; a far greater difference than
he had felt when living among the petty tyrants, whom he hated, but who
were familiar to him. There had been a certain zest and enjoyment in
hatred, which was missing in this new life, where there were no enemies
or oppressors. Besides this, though he had never consciously felt the
spell of the mountain peaks among which he dwelt, the broad, wide sweep
of the moorland, rising gradually up to a softly undulating line
against the sky, was irksome and painful to him; why, he knew not. A
deep, passive dejection fell upon his spirit, and drove every thought
of his slowly awakening mind inward. There was nothing in him of the
child's spontaneous action of the mind outward. He had suffered from
tyranny and persecution; he was now suffering from nostalgia, and utter
weariness of his uncongenial life.
The first day the snow began to fall Andrew's vigilant eye detected the
tears falling down the rugged cheeks of his grandson. He ran out into
the forecourt and stood still for the soft flakes to fall upon his bare
head, and hands stretched out as if to give them a welcome--the welcome
we give to messengers from a beloved land. He looked down at the print
of his feet on the white carpet, and immediately took off his boots,
and trod upon it barefooted, as if with reverence of its purity. All
day long he wandered about the moors, his face lit up with an
expression that was almost a smile. Andrew, who did not care to
accompany him into the frosty air and bitter north wind, watched him
from a garret window, now taking long and rapid strides across the
snow-clad uplands, and now standing motionless for many minutes, his
bare head bowed down and his arms hanging listlessly by his sides,
until the snowflakes had covered him from head to foot. What was he
thinking of, this poor son of Sophy's? What did he remember? Was he
really of sound mind; or was it true, as all the country folks were
saying, that he was a poor, witless innocent? Could nothing be done to
arouse him, mind and soul? Was there no way of undoing the wrong that
had been done?
So the dark months of November and part of December passed by, and
Rachel wrote that Mr. Martin and all the family were coming to keep
Christmas at Brackenburn instead of Apley. To meet Sidney again, and
stay under his roof almost like a guest, was more than Andrew could
brook; so he took himself away to Apley to spend a lonely Christmas in
his old home.