responded the Major, grimly. "In ceasing to be my half-brother, he
ceased to be your uncle. Done! What hasn't he done? First, he got
his head filled with cursed abolitionist notions, and freed all his
slaves. Next, he offered the greater part of his land for sale at
public auction;--just think of it! some of the old lands of Bergan Hall
put up to be knocked down to the highest bidder! But I settled _that_
business, by proclaiming far and wide that whoever bid for them might
expect to reckon with me for his impertinence; and as I'm known to be a
man of my word, no one dared to lift his voice at the sale, and I got
them at my own price. Finally Godfrey capped the climax of his
degeneracy by opening a hardware store in Berganton. Think of that,
Hairy!--a Bergan of Bergan Hall, with a long pedigree of warriors and
nobles at his back, standing behind a counter, selling hoes and
tea-kettles to negroes and crackers!"
Bergan was silent. Though not without some touch of family pride,
derived from his mother, he had nevertheless been taught to believe all
upright labor honorable, to hold that life was ennobled from within, by
its motive and aim, rather than from without, by its place and form.
He could not help suspecting, therefore, that his host, deliberately
leading the narrow life of an overseer of slaves, on his ancestral
estate, was in reality a more degenerate son of his house than the
relative whom he so bitterly contemned. Yet he foresaw that any
attempt to defend Godfrey Bergan would but result in bringing down upon
himself a torrent of fierce, half-drunken vituperation. Seasoned
vessel though he were, the Major's repeated draughts of brandy, very
little diluted, had not been without effect, in flushing his face, and
inflaming his habitually irritable temper. His present mood would ill
brook contradiction.
Fortunately, he neither expected nor waited for an answer. Hastily
emptying his glass and filling it again, he went on.
"Now, Harry, if you can tell me any way by which I can ruin his
business, turn him out of his house, and make him quit the country,
I'll own that I've done the law an injustice, and give you a handsome
fee besides. Can the thing be done?"
Bergan silently shook his head; he would not trust himself to speak.
"Just as I told you!" exclaimed the Major, with great virulence of
expression. "The law has plenty of quibbles and quirks for the help of
rogues and scoundrels, but it can't lend a hand to an honest cause, at
a pinch! I'll none of it, Harry! I'll none of it! Get what you know
of it out of your head as soon as you can."
The Major paused long enough to empty his glass, and then resumed, in a
more amiable tone. "The best thing you can do, Harry, is to stay here
with me; I'll make a rice-planter of you. It doesn't take a ninny for
that, by any means; your talents will not be thrown away. And if we
suit each other,--as I think we shall,--I'll give you Bergan Hall when
my title to it expires. To be sure, I'm strong and hearty yet; but no
one lasts forever. And as you are named for me, and I like your looks,
I would rather give it to you than anybody else. In fact, I've had it
in my mind, for some time, to write to Eleanor and ask her to do just
what she has done,--send one of her boys to live with me, and be my
heir."
"You mistake," said Bergan, quickly, "neither my mother nor myself had
any such idea. She merely wished me to consult you about commencing my
profession in--"
"Tut! tut! Harry," interrupted his uncle, "I meant it, if you and she
did not. And I mean it more than ever now; that is, if you'll yield to
my wish about the law. But if you persist in sticking to that, I give
you up, once for all--mind, I give you up!"
"I should deserve to be given up," replied Bergan, smiling, "if I were
lightly to forsake a vocation for which I am fitted both by taste and
education, to enter upon one of which I know absolutely nothing. I may
reasonably hope to succeed as a lawyer; I fear I should make but a poor
planter. Moreover, it would not suit me to be dependent upon any one."
"Stuff! nonsense!" exclaimed Major Bergan, bluntly. "I defy you to
make a poor planter under my tuition,--I claim to understand that
business. As for dependence, never you fear but that I shall get aid
and comfort enough out of you to make our accounts square. For, after
all, Harry, it is a dreary kind of a life that I'm leading, without
chick or child, kith or kin, to speak to, or to care for. I cannot
help asking myself, sometimes, what is the good of it all, and how Is
it to end. But with a fine young fellow like you here, to enter into
my plans now, and carry them out after I'm gone,--why, it would be like
a fresh lease of life to me! We'll rebuild the old house, you shall
drop the 'Arling,' and behold the seventh Harry Bergan of Bergan Hall,
on _this_ side the water! And really, I don't see how you can do
better, Harry. Here are wealth, position, influence, and a chance to
oblige your old uncle,--ready to your hand. Stay, my boy, stay!"
The Major's bluff voice had sunken to a hoarse tone of sadness, in his
confession of loneliness, and finally, to one of entreaty, that touched
his nephew's heart. Nor was the prospect held up before him without
its own peculiar and powerful attraction. He looked thoughtfully into
the fire, debating with himself what and how he should reply. His
uncle watched him keenly for a moment, and then said, in his kindest
tone and manner;--
"Well, Harry, I won't press you for an answer, now. Stay here a month
or two, and look around you; and then, we'll talk the matter over
again, and see if we cannot settle upon something that shall be
mutually satisfactory. For so long, surely, you can afford to be my
guest."
III.
"PATTERN OF OLD FIDELITY."
Before Bergan could answer, there came a low tap at the door. A negro
woman, of unusual height, and singularly venerable and dignified
aspect, stood, courtesying slightly, on the threshold. She was plainly
of great age,--her face was deeply furrowed, and her hair, where it
could be seen under the dark blue kerchief that covered her head, was
white as snow,--yet her shoulders had not bent under the burden of
years, her tall frame, though gaunt, was little palsied by the touch of
actual infirmity. Although she carried a cane, it was not so much for
its support, as for its aid in feeling out her way along her accustomed
paths; she had been blind for many years.
"Master Harry," said she, clasping her hands over the head of her cane,
and speaking in slow, somewhat tremulous tones, but with neither the
slovenly utterance nor the vicious pronunciation of the ordinary
slave,--"Master Harry, excuse me if I interrupt you, but I could not
wait any longer,--I wanted so much to see Miss Eleanor's son!"
"It is Maumer Rue," said Major Bergan, not only with unwonted kindness
of tone, but with something akin to respect in his manner;--"your
mother must have spoken to you of our old nurse, Harry?"
"Indeed she has!" exclaimed Bergan, earnestly, starting up to take the
blind woman's hand. "Your name has always been a household word with
us. The story of your devotion to my mother, in saving her from the
flames, at the risk of your own life, and with the ultimate loss of
your sight, was the one story of which we children never used to tire.
Probably we felt, in our vague, childish way, that it was the one which
came from the profoundest depth in her own heart,--since she could
never tell it to us without a little tremor in her voice, and a soft
dewiness in her eyes,--and that was the secret of its charm for us.
You may be sure that she has never forgotten how much she owes you!"
The old woman's lips trembled, and large tears gathered in her
sightless eyes. "The Lord bless my dear young lady!" she ejaculated
fervently,--"I knew she would never forget her old maumer. And it's
like her to make much of my little service; but I did nothing but what
was my duty--nothing."
"She thinks otherwise," replied Bergan, kindly. "She regards it as one
of those rare instances of courage and devotion, for which the whole
world is better and brighter. She bade me give you her kindest love,
and tell you that you must not despair of meeting her once more, even
on this side the grave. When the new railroad is finished, as far as
our place,--which it promises to be in a year or two,--she fully
intends to revisit her childhood's home, and look once more upon the
faces of her childhood's friends. She furthermore charged me to pay
you an early visit, in your own quarters, and tell you everything about
her western home and life that you might care to hear."
"How kind of Miss Eleanor to think of that!" responded the blind woman,
delightedly. "It shows that she's just her own old self, always trying
to think what everybody would like, and then doing her best to give it
to them. Of course, there's a hundred questions that I should like to
ask about her; and if you really don't mind answering them, and will do
me the honor to step into my little cabin, some day when you're passing
by, I shall be more obliged to you than I can rightly tell. But as to
my ever seeing Miss Eleanor again,--I beg your pardon, sir; you see
I've not yet learned to say Mrs. Arling,--though there's nothing on
earth that would make me so glad as to meet her again, and hear the
sound of her sweet, cheery voice, yet I'm getting to be too old to dare
to reckon much upon the future. But the next best thing to meeting
her, is to meet her son, here on the old place; and I thank the Lord
that He has let me live long enough for that."
The old negress bent her head devoutly for a moment, and then turned to
Major Bergan. "Does he favor Miss Eleanor much, Master Harry?" she
asked.
"Yes, he is a good deal like her, maumer; he has her eyes exactly. But
he is even more like what I was forty years ago; it really makes me
feel young again to look at him. He's a real Bergan, I can tell you
that."
Maumer Rue smiled as if well pleased; yet the smile seemed a little
burdened with sadness, too; and Bergan saw that it was followed by a
look of extreme wistfulness.
"Can I do anything for you?" he asked, kindly.
"Nothing, master,--unless--if it is not asking too much,--and if you
would not mind the touch of an old woman's fingers, that have to serve
her instead of eyes, I could get so much clearer an idea of your
looks,--" and she finished the sentence by raising her hand
significantly toward his face.
Bergan was much moved. "Of course I should not mind," said he, drawing
near to her;--"examine me as closely as you like. It would be strange
indeed if there were anything unpleasant to me in the touch of hands
that have done so much for my mother!"
"It's easy to see that you are Miss Eleanor's son, you have just her
kind, pleasant ways," responded the blind woman, gratefully. "He is a
little taller than you, Master Harry," she continued, turning toward
the Major, as she laid her hand on Bergan's head,--"yes, just a little
taller, though not much."
"All the better for that," remarked the Major, parenthetically, "the
Bergans must not degenerate."
Maumer Rue went on, without noticing the interruption; passing her
fingers lightly over Bergan's features, as she spoke. "His brow is
square and full, like yours, and he has the same straight nose; but his
eyes are not so deep-set, nor his eyebrows so heavy. His jaw is like
yours, too,--the set, square jaw of the Bergans,--but his mouth is more
like Miss Eleanor's:--a sweet, pleasant mouth she had, the mouth of the
Habershams, her mother's family. Yet it could be firm enough, too,
when there was need; our Miss Eleanor had plenty of character. And I'm
right glad to see that you are so much like her; you couldn't resemble
any one better or handsomer."
She made a slight pause, and then added, in a half-humorous way,--"I
reckon she couldn't give you any spice of the 'black Bergan temper,' as
she had none of it herself."
"I am afraid she did," answered Bergan, laughing, yet coloring, too;
"and many a scrape it has gotten me into, before now. But I hope that
I am learning to control it a little."
"I don't see why you should," broke in the Major, gruffly. "The Bergan
temper is an heir-loom to be proud of; it identifies the breed. It has
run in the blood from time immemorial. A Bergan without it--that is, a
male, of course a woman counts for nothing--would be no Bergan at all."
"You say true, Master Harry," rejoined Rue, composedly; "it's always
run in the blood, and heated it more than was good for it, many a time.
Yet, now and then, there has been a Bergan who has learned how to keep
it under, and been all the better for doing it. You surely must
recollect what a mild, kind gentleman your father was, young as you
were when he died; and I've heard say that there never was a truer
Bergan, or one more respected all the country through."
The Major made a grimace, and muttered something unintelligible, in a
tone half of acquiescence, half of irritation.
Rue turned again to Bergan. "You have been very patient with an old
woman's talk, and an old woman's infirmity," said she, with a kind of
natural dignity,--"I will not trouble you any longer. Good night, and
thank you, Master--what name shall I say?"
Bergan hesitated, and looked doubtfully at his uncle.
"He says his name is Bergan," explained the Major, shortly; "but I have
given him to understand that he is to be known by my own name, Harry,
while he stays here."
Rue shook her head. "There can be but one Master Harry for me," she
said quietly,--"the one that I nursed as a babe and petted as a child,
the one that I have lived with so many years, and who has always been
so kind to me--kinder even than he has been to himself. So please let
me call him Master Bergan; but, of course, the rest of the people will
give him any name that you say."
"Of course they will," returned the Major, haughtily, "or I'll know the
reason why. As for you, maumer, I shall let you do as you please;
you've had your own way too long to be balked of it now. But take care
that the others don't hear and imitate you,--or you know what they'll
get.".
"Thank you, Master Harry," replied Rue, as gratefully as if the assent
had been more graciously given,--"you are always good to your poor old
maumer. Good night." And she turned to go.
But on the threshold, she paused, and lifted her sightless face toward
the dim night-sky, across which dark clouds were swiftly scudding.
"Master Harry," said she, suddenly, "do you remember how I told you,
six months ago, that the Bergan star was set, and how angry you were?"
"Yes, yes, I remember," exclaimed the Major, hoarsely and
eagerly,--"what of it?"
She slowly raised her right hand, and pointed skyward, with a strange,
intent, watchful expression in her uplifted "See! it is rising!" said
she; "it comes up through the clouds,--they try to hold it back, but
they cannot,--it grows brighter! it rises higher!--ah!"--drawing her
breath hard and gaspingly,--"it stops--it goes down again!--the clouds
cover it!--it is--No! it is not gone! it shines faintly behind the
clouds--it breaks through--slowly, slowly, slowly,--it rises! it rises!"
Yielding, half-unconsciously, to the powerful influence of the blind
woman's rapt, ecstatic manner, Bergan had drawn near to her, and now
saw, with surprise, a single star shining for a moment through the
rifts of the clouds. Glancing at the Major, whom he had before seen to
be hanging with breathless interest upon the words of the old negress,
he perceived that his eyes were fixed upon it also, with a gaze that
was half-awed, half-triumphant. He knew not what to think.
Maumer Rue still stood in the same commanding attitude, with raised
hand, and intent, uplooking face. Suddenly, her arm fell by her side;
her head drooped on her breast; the majesty that had informed her pose
and gesture went out like an expiring flame; she shivered, tottered,
and would have fallen but for the Major's prompt support. Without a
word, he guided her safely to the door of her cabin.
Coming back, he reseated himself at the table, which had been cleared
of everything but the bottles and glasses, and hastily poured out and
swallowed some raw brandy. Then he remarked, in a half-explanatory and
half-apologetic tone,--
"She enjoys the reputation of a seer, or prophetess, among the negroes;
and I really think she has some faith in it herself. Certainly, she
seems to have strange visions now and then; and some of her predictions
have come true; I confess she puzzles even me. At all events, she is
the best and most faithful old creature that ever lived. She was born
on the estate, brought up in the Hall with my father and his sisters,
shared their education, is thoroughly steeped in the family traditions,
duly infected with the family pride, and entirely devoted to the family
interests. She is the only person that I allow to do pretty much as
she pleases; her long and faithful services to my father, Eleanor, and
myself, deserve that much, I think. And really, she is of great use to
me; I scarcely know what I should do without her. The negroes all
believe her to be a hundred years old--undoubtedly she is past
ninety--and that, together with her reputation as a prophetess, gives
her great power over them, and saves me a heap of trouble in managing
them. She has very good judgment, too, in many things; I frequently
take her advice, and never yet had occasion to regret doing so.
Indeed, it was chiefly at her instigation and entreaty that I had made
up my mind, as I told you, to write to your mother about sending me one
of her sons."
He paused for a moment, and then asked, in a careless tone, but with a
quick, keen glance at his nephew, from under his shaggy brows,--"Did
you see that star?"
"Yes," answered Bergan. "It was a curious coincidence."
"Hum--very," returned his uncle, evidently not quite satisfied with
this view of the matter. But he said no more.
The conversation now turned into various other channels. It touched
for a brief space upon the indefatigable quoter of proverbs whom Bergan
had overtaken on his way to the Hall; and whom the Major declared to be
the only living representative of one of the oldest and most
influential families in the county. He had been reared in affluence,
had been educated in Europe, and had inherited a large fortune and a
fine estate. But he had early fallen into bad habits,--not so much
from viciousness of temper and taste, as from weakness of will and
consequent inability to resist temptation,--had run a short, rapid
career of folly, extravagance, and dissipation, in which he had
frittered away his inheritance, and so had gradually sunken into his
present state of semi-vagabondage. He lived, by sufferance, in a
little cabin, on one corner of the estate which he had formerly owned.
From his wholesale shipwreck of fortune, position, will, energy, and
hope, he had saved but one thing--his love of proverbs. It had even
grown stronger in proportion as other things wasted and failed,--like a
plant striking deep root into soil enriched by the decay of many sister
plants. He had learned several languages solely for the sake of their
proverbs; he had even been seen to hesitate and waver long between the
diverse, but powerful, attractions of a bottle of ardent spirits and a
dingy, old collection of saws, when but one came within the compass of
his purse; and he was known far and wide by the _sobriquet_ of "Proverb
Dick." His real name was Richard Causton.
In listening to this history, Bergan could not but be struck by the
curiously discriminating character of the Major's animadversion. He
had little, or nothing, to say in disapproval of the depraved and
ungovernable appetite for strong drink which, it was easy to see, had
played so important part in ruining poor Richard Causton; while he
could find no words strong enough to express his bitter contempt for
the flabby will, the pitiable irresolution, and the insane
extravagance, which had joined hands with that appetite for his
complete destruction. Tender, as a mother to her babe, over the fault
which he knew himself to possess (if he secretly acknowledged it to be
a fault), Major Bergan was merciless to the weaknesses from which he
was saved by a hardier will and a more energetic temperament.
But as the evening wore on, and the brandy slowly worked its way up to
the stronghold of his brain, the Major's talk grew discursive, profane,
and incoherent; until Bergan, shocked and pained, and anxious to escape
from the mortifying spectacle, pleaded fatigue, and begged permission
to retire. Jip was accordingly summoned, and he was conducted to a
little, low room under the cottage roof, where his portmanteau had been
bestowed, and some little provision made for his comfort.
Here Bergan quickly threw himself on the bed, to find, for the first
time in his life, that it was one thing to woo the fair maiden Sleep,
and another to win her. Recollections of his western home, of his
mother, of the ancestral traditions on which his childish imagination
had fed, of his youthful studies and aspirations, of his recent
journey, and the disappointment in which it had ended, mingled with
half-conceived plans and half-acknowledged hopes,--a vague, changeable,
teasing, tireless procession of thoughts and images,--filed slowly
through his mind, compelling his reluctant gaze, and blocking up every
avenue to Slumberland. And if, for an instant, the vexing march
stopped, and the importunate images began to waver and blend, sounds of
stamping feet, of jingling glass, of muttered oaths and sentences, or
two or three half-sung, half-shouted lines of a drunken ditty, coming
up from below, startled him once more into wakefulness, and told him
that his uncle's solitary debauch was not yet ended. It was already
gray dawn when, worn out with restlessness, he fell into a brief
slumber, and dreamed that old Rue, with the Bergan star in her hand,
was beckoning him to follow her over a dreary, desolate country, full
of briers and pitfalls, wherein he was so constantly entangled that, in
spite of his best endeavors, he could never get any nearer to her.
Turning suddenly, she flashed the star into his eyes, and:--oh, horror
of horrors!--he was blind!
Starting up, all in a tremble, he found that the risen sun was shining
full in his face, through the uncurtained window. It was morning.
IV.
A GOODLY HERITAGE.
Early as was the hour, Bergan found the table already laid for
breakfast in the room below, where he was soon joined by the Major. He
brought with him (besides a noticeable odor of brandy), a cordial
morning greeting, and a temper which, though by no means urbane, had a
certain, flavor of bluff good nature, in pleasing contrast with his
extreme irritability of the preceding evening. Encouraged by these and
similar signs of a clearer mental atmosphere, Bergan ventured to
mention his uncle Godfrey, and to remark that he had been charged with
a letter to him from his mother, which he must take an early
opportunity to deliver.
"Eh! what?" asked the Major, laying down his knife and fork, with the
look and tone of a man who doubts the evidence of his own senses.
Bergan quietly repeated his words.
The Major's face grew dark, and his eyebrows met in a heavy frown. "I
shall take it mighty hard of you, if you do," said he, sternly and
gloomily. "I tell you, Harry, he is no Bergan at all, and he ought not
to be treated like one. Eleanor would never have written to him, nor
desired you to visit him, if she had known the true state of
affairs;--you can safely take that for granted, and act accordingly.
Besides," he went on, after a slight pause, "it is only fair to warn
you that any one who goes from Bergan Hall over to Oakstead (that's
what he calls his place), doesn't come back again,--with my consent.
There's no relation, nor commerce, nor sympathy, nor liking, between
the two places; and there never can be any while I live,--nor after I
am dead, either, if I can help it. So just put that matter out of your
head, Harry, and say no more about it."