_FRESH FIELDS AND PASTURES NEW._
"Wer nicht fortgeht, geht zurücke,
Unsere schnellen Augenblicke
Geh'n vor sich, nicht hinter sich,
Das ist mein, was ich besitze,
Diese Stunde, die ich nütze,
Die ich hoff', ist die für mich?"
"And Jonathan said to David, Go in peace, forasmuch as we have sworn
both of us in the name of the Lord, saying, The Lord be between thee
and me, and between my seed and thy seed for ever. And he arose and
departed."
And now we have to bridge over an interval of years. As years pass
on, we do not see their flight; it is only when we look back that we
perceive that they have gone; and with them come all sorts of
changes, and we scarcely notice them until we think of what there was
before--we adapt ourselves so imperceptibly to circumstances.
Ten years! ten years have gone since we stood in that room and saw
Duke brought in upon his bed; ten years since that memorable
Christmas Eve, since he first was laid upon his back. He is now a
man, and a handsome one indeed. He has a magnificent moustache--you
do not know how great a change that makes in one--black as the
raven's wing, of which, all his friends make fun, and of which not a
few are envious. There is the old fire in his eyes which was there
of old. After all, he is not so very changed; those who knew him
then would know him now. But he is still upon his back; he never
once has stood upon his feet since that night spent down the shaft of
Wheal Galore. But he declares that he is none the worse for that.
He never thinks of it at all; he reckons it of no account at all; and
if that is not, _literatim et verbatim_, quite the truth, if at times
he does think how different things would all have been if--if it were
not for "if"--he lets no sign of such unfruitful thought be seen; to
all practical intents and purposes he is content with what the Lord
has given him.
But there are things in which he is much more changed than in his
appearance--inward those changes are. It would be impossible for
such a lad as he to be thrown for ever upon a bed of sickness and not
by that visitation--because of it--be changed for better or for
worse. With him it has all been for the better; that hasty temper,
that quick, fiery disposition, which made him always act and never
think at all, or at most. when thought was no longer of any service,
fled all in a night. Duke's thoughtfulness is now proverbial. There
is so little that can be done for him despite his wealth and the
glory of his name; he is shut out from so many of the pursuits and
pleasures, hopes, and fears, and ambitions of ordinary mortals, that,
as he himself declares, if he did not think of and for others, he
would not think at all. Generosity always was his characteristic; it
is now almost the chief business of his life to learn the way in
which he can be generous with most effect, in which his generosity
can do most good.
In another way he has also changed. To say the least of it, in those
old days he never was fond of books, and he certainly was not
studious; now he is in every sense of the word a scholar. So soon as
it was certain that his injuries were permanent, and that he was
never to be as other boys again, a tutor, a man of great attainments
both of the heart and of the head, was engaged at his own especial
request. Under his direction the lad became--to quote his own
humorous declaration--a "prodigy" of learning. He beat Ria,
out-distanced Nelly, and left Winnie in the rear. Scholastically he
told his sisters that he held them in completest scorn; they could
not hold a farthing dip to him.
"No," said Nelly, on the occasion when he made the elegant
observation about the farthing dip, "I am afraid we cannot; you are
the eighth wonder of the world; boys always are. There would be
several wonders of the world if you believed them all."
"I'm not a boy," declared Duke, who being at that time nearly
nineteen, was fully persuaded that he had left his boyhood for ever
in the rear. "I wish, Miss Eleanor, that you would understand that
clearly. Shall I never be able to teach you how to treat me with
proper respect?"
"I am afraid not, I am so very dull. You clever people ought to
think of us with pity, especially when you are so sure that you are
clever." At this, as she sat at his side, Duke, who was able to do
so much, stretched out his hand and boxed her ears.
But Duke was not only a student of the works of others, he was
himself a writer, in a humble way of course; but he hoped for greater
things in time. He began, as probably every writer did begin since
writing first was known, with poems. They were fair--that is to say,
as Nelly said, considering who it was had written them--but nothing
marvellous. He himself was obliged to own that they were nothing
marvellous; his tutor left him in no sort of doubt of that. It was
probable, to put it tenderly--"always put things tenderly," said
Nelly, and Duke was furious--that his was not the poet's gift. Rhyme
is rhyme and blank verse may be very blank,--poetry is quite another
thing; and so he turned to humble prose. In that he fared much
better; in fact, he soon began to get for himself quite a small name.
Marmaduke Tregowan began to be known in the world of letters, and
Duke became, as Nelly said, humbler than ever--he always was so
humble; and Duke was furious again.
The girls were curiously little altered with the passage of the
years. Winnie was long since married, and had her home in the far
North, but still came often to the West. Nelly was just the same
quiet, gentle damsel, with a tongue which, in her quiet way, she
could use with good effect upon occasion; and it was said--but what
was said of Nelly we must leave awhile. Ria was a bonny, blythesome
lass, happy and full of life as the day was long, a trifle more
sedate than she had been of yore--it would have been terrible had it
been otherwise--but still full of fun and gaiety, in a sense the
light and life of that quiet home.
As for the mother, her head was silvered; winter had come and laid
upon her head locks white almost as driven snow, but her form was not
yet bowed. She still was stately as a queen. "The queen--my
mother!" Duke was wont to say of her in jest; and indeed she was a
queen--a queen of love. Hers was the empire of their hearts, and
fairer empire never yet was governed by a queen. No inroads of time
could work havoc with the mother. Aged she might be, and disciplined
by many sorrows, but she would always be the same.
"The best of mothers, the youngest and handsomest of them all!" as
Duke declared; and the mother, who was at his side, laid her hand
upon his raven locks and smiled. "You are! How dare you laugh at
me? Have I not told you again and again that you will always be the
youngest and handsomest woman in all the world to me? and is not my
word as the law of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be changed?
Mother, mother darling!" and his voice was softer on a sudden. "Was
ever mother to a son what you have been to me? Thou best of mothers!
what might I not have been had it not been for you? Kiss me, mother.
My taste is very curious, for there are still no kisses in the world
which are half so sweet to me as yours!" And she stooped and kissed
him.
"Ah! Duke, Duke! if I have not been spoiled, it certainly has been
no fault of yours. You have flattered me, you have praised me to my
face, you have tried to make me think that there never was one half
so wonderful as I. What should I have been if I had implicitly
accepted all that you have said?"
"I have not flattered you; it is a libel. Mother, I am surprised at
you--to try to take away my character. Is this the return for all
that I have done for you? Alas! alas! how bitterly I was deceived!
Moreover, one thing is very clear--you have never flattered me; that
is a crime which you were never guilty of. You never congratulated
yourself on the unapproachable son which you have got. You never
pointed out, in my hearing, my numerous graces. You never
complimented me on my overwhelming--I will not say genius; I will at
least, whatever others are, be humble--but you never complimented me
upon my overwhelming talents."
"Humility," the mother said, and there was a twinkle in her eye, "is
so divine a virtue, that I was unwilling to disturb any of it which
you might have."
"I don't know," said Nelly, who had entered just before, "but I think
that if Duke were to put out the humility he has at compound interest
and let it accumulate for many years, there might be something to
show for it in course of time."
And those who once were boys together had taken to themselves maturer
years and were now young men. Penharden had passed through the
university, and had gained considerable notoriety, if nothing else,
at the Union Debating Club. Time had somewhat mellowed him, and
experience had induced him to lop off some of the excrescences which
he was wont to consider were the chief ornaments of his style; but he
still was flowery in speech. His ambition was for parliamentary
fame, and he was already looking for a borough which would be
sufficiently judicious to estimate at their proper value his splendid
gifts. Trevena had not distinguished himself in any way. He had
declined to go to the university, for obvious reasons some declared,
preferring to travel abroad, for there was now every prospect of his
settling down as a not particularly intellectual country gentleman of
a school which is now commonly allowed to be old-fashioned. Nor had
Eva set the Thames on fire; he had, alas! been requested to remove
himself from the shadow of the university walls. He was too fond of
getting into scrapes, even for the not particularly strict
disciplinarians who reign at _Alma Mater_; and since then he had done
nothing to make himself remarkable. Mason, who always had a taste
for soldiering, passed into the army, and Anderson kept him company.
At the time at which we write both are bound for foreign shores.
Chandos Effingham was still a character. Those who knew him little
regarded him with horror. A more uncomfortable guest to have in a
mixed assembly, composed principally of strangers, it would have been
impossible to find. He bred confusion on every hand. Blessed with a
tongue which was seldom or never at rest, and which never could by
any possibility constrain itself to ordinary civility, no wonder
nervous people kept aloof from him, and well-bred folk shuddered at
the sight of him. But those who knew him intimately declared that at
bottom there was no better fellow in the world; that his bark was
everything--he never bit; that a tenderer heart for any one in need
or suffering of any kind was never known; that more than half of his
by no means splendid fortune went in unassuming charity to others;
that on occasion he was gentle as a lamb, strong as a lion, and brave
as--brave as any one by any possibility could be; and, strangest part
of all, there was one person who to his face treated him with
scantiest civility, who was as rude to him as he could be to others,
and yet who, when his back was turned, would never allow a single
word to be spoken to his discredit, and who was wont to wax both hot
and furious in his defence; and that one was none other than Marion
Tregowan. Who shall explain the reason why?
As for Lionel Pollyon, we come to him the last, for with him we shall
conclude. His name will be the last to appear upon our pages. In
spite of all his worldliness and shrewdness, he had elected to put
the world aside, to follow in his father's footsteps, to do battle
for the Master's crown. His was to be the mission-field; he was not
to stay at home. He was just as practical as ever--we fear at times
almost as curious in his choice of English; no vain dreamer, but with
a definite end in view, which he meant, given strength by God, to
gain.
Duke's dearest friend in all the world, he would be sorely missed;
they were inseparable. He had indeed become to him as Damon was to
Pythias, as Jonathan to David; and now they were to part. The world
is full of partings, and though at first sight it does not so appear,
it is well it should be so; yet, well or ill, to part with one we
love is always hard, and this was hard to them. Hard, too, to
another--to Nelly; for long ago these two had understood each other,
and she was to be a parson's wife.
"And a decent wife she'll make," Duke had said, when first the news
was told to him. Nelly stood blushing by, and Lionel as well. "A
very decent wife, upon the whole." There was a bright light in his
eyes. In truth it was to his thinking the best news he could have
heard, but he would not leaven his speech with anything like
sentiment. "But, Lionel, you are assuming a grave, a very grave
responsibility. You are undertaking a task in which even I have
failed; and where I have failed, how shall it fare with you? Teach
her to respect you, sir. Imbue her with a due sense of propriety.
Alas! with all my efforts, she has never yet respected me!"
And he groaned audibly, though happy tears were in his eyes; and in
confidence he told them afterwards that their union would be the
consummation of his dearest hopes.
But now Lionel was to go; he was to be away a year, and when he came
again, and there was something like order in his distant home, the
marriage was to be. And since last scenes are necessary to properly
conclude a tale, our last scene shall be in Duke Tregowan's room, on
the morning before he started on his voyage.
Summer, and the season is in its prime, everywhere is there the glory
of that happy time, everywhere is there beauty in the world. In all
the sky is radiance, for the sun is near its time of setting. Duke's
window is wide open; a gentle breeze comes through, breathing breath
of summer, but so still it is, that if you are attentive, you can
hear the plashing of the waves against the North Cliffs. The sound
is like the refrain of some far-off chorus, the echo of some summer
song.
They are gathered round the open window, Duke upon his couch, Nelly
and Lionel close together at his head, the mother at the back, and
Ria lounging idly with an open book upon her lap and one arm upon the
sill. Her eyes are looking out across the land, and the sun shines
through, and since the chamber has a western aspect, it frames them
all in glory. And they are silent for a time, for it is the evening
hour, when all the world is still.
Duke speaks at last.
"In little more than three weeks you will be at your journey's end.
You must not forget this evening, Lionel; it is a good omen. You see
the sun wishes you a glorious farewell."
"I shall not forget it. Do you think I shall? I need no omen, good
or bad, to keep it in my memory. I have other memorials more
powerful than such a foolishness as that." His hand was lying close
to Nelly's. He pressed it, and in return she pressed his back again.
Again silence. There are occasions, nor few nor far between, when
silence is more eloquent than speech. You may not have known them
yet, but you will in time. There are seasons when the heart is much
too full for utterance in words, when, indeed, in a righteous sense
words mask the feelings of our hearts. Periods there are which seem
to us too sacred for the interchange of speech.
Again it is Duke who breaks the silence.
"Ten years ago! ten years ago! O Lionel! when we were boys
together!" and he sighs, scarcely knowing why. "It seems but
yesterday."
"And is that so strange? Is it indeed so long ago? Are you such old
men now?" It is the mother speaks, and smiles the while.
"Old in wisdom perhaps, if not in years." This demurely from Nelly.
"Would that indeed we were! We should long since have shown a
difference in you. We should at least have taught you good
behaviour."
"I often think it must be grand to be a man." This from Ria, who
still looked out across the land. "To think of all the things which
you can do--the grand and noble deeds which are the destiny of man.
To think that you can go far, far beyond the sun, braving death and
danger, while we must stop at home and pray. How much the noblest
thing in all the world is a noble man!"
This was a new mood in Ria, who was not much given to poetic musings.
"There are great things to be done by those who stop at home and
pray," answered Lionel, with a touch of his old manner. "There's the
romance of the practical as well as the romance of the ideal, and the
practical's a good deal the better of the two. Don't you believe any
nonsense about braving death and danger, and going far, far beyond
the sun. There's just as much good to be done close by as at a
distance, and the less fuss you make about the good you do do, the
more like real good it'll be. I'm not very hot on the romantic
theory."
"But you are going across the sea, you are braving death and danger
to do good," persisted Ria.
"Yes, I am, because it must be done by somebody. There are all sorts
of work to do, and I have chosen that sort for which it seems to me I
am most fitted. But don't you suppose it is in any way a feather in
my cap. All good work is equally good before the Lord."
"Yes," said the mother, "there is no doubt of that; all good work is
equally good before the Lord. The only thing is to be sure the work
is good."
"And when you are sure, do it," said Lionel.
And again there was silence, broken by Duke repeating in his clear
ringing tones those lines of Johann Gottfried Herder, "Lied des
Leben's," of which here a free translation is given. Spoken while
the setting sun was still in all its glory, they seemed in strange
harmony with the spirit of the time:--
"Let us strew life's path with roses,
For its glory soon will wane!
Roses! for the days are merging
Into winter's misty tide.
Roses! for they bloom and blossom
Round about on every side.
On each spray there blossom roses,
On each noble deed of youth.
Happy he who, till its waning,
E'er hath lived a life of truth.
Days! oh, be ye like a garland,
Crowning locks of snowy white,
Blooming with new brightness round them,
Like a youthful vision bright.
E'en the dark-hued flow'rs refresh us
With repose of matchless price,
And refreshing breezes waft us
Kindly into Paradise."
And again was silence. And the shadows longer grew, and the sun sank
low, and evening came apace.
PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE, HANSON, AND CO.
EDINBURGH AND LONDON.