"The dirge-like sound of those rapids," said Rose, as she tossed on her
pillow at the public-house, at Niagara, vainly courting sleep; "it
oppresses me, Gertrude, with an indescribable gloom."
"Your nerves are sadly out of tune, dear Rose; it will be quite another
affair to-morrow, _i. e._, if the sun shines out. Niagara's organ-peal
will then be music to you, and the emerald sheen of its rushing
waters--the rosy arch, spanning its snowy mist--beautiful beyond your
wildest dream! And that lovely island, too. Dear Rose, life, after all,
is very beautiful. But how cold your hands are, and how you tremble; let
me try my sovereign panacea, music;" and drawing Rose's head to her
breast, Gertrude sang--
"Tarry with me, oh, my Saviour!
For the day is passing by;
See! the shades of evening gather,
And the night is drawing nigh.
Tarry with me! tarry with me!
Pass me not unheeded by.
"Dimmed for me is earthly beauty,
Yet the spirit's eye would fain
Rest upon Thy lovely features--
Shall I seek, dear Lord, in vain?
Tarry with me, oh, my Saviour!
Let me see Thy smile again.
"Dull my ear to earth-born music;
Speak Thou, Lord! in words of cheer;
Feeble, faltering, my footstep;
Leaps my heart with sudden fear.
Cast _Thine_ arms, dear Lord, about me,
Let me feel Thy presence near!"
"Poor Rose," sighed Gertrude, as she kissed her closed lids, laid her
head gently back upon the pillow, and released the little hand within
her own. "If she could only bear up under this new trial; she is so pure
and good that the thought of the sin the world wrongly imputes to her is
wearing her life away. This journey, which I hoped would do so much for
her, may fail after all. Poor wronged Rose! how can it be right the
innocent should thus suffer?" but ere the murmur had found voice the
answer came:
"For right is right, since God is God,
And right the day must win:
To doubt, would be disloyalty--
To falter, would be sin."
And laying her cheek by the side of Rose, Gertrude slept.
The next day was fine, and the faint smile on Rose's pale face was sweet
as the much longed-for sunlight. Our travelers descended to the ample
drawing-room of the hotel to breakfast.
Rose glanced timidly about, scanning the forms which passed before her,
as was her wont at a new place, and then the unsatisfied eye drooped
beneath its snowy lid; and they who had been struck with the pensive
beauty of her face, gazed upon it unnoticed by its object, whose
thoughts were far away.
The tall Indian head-waiter was at his post, as purveyor of corn-cakes
and coffee; and excellently well as he filled it, Gertrude protested, as
an artist, against such a desecration of his fine athletic form and
kingly air.
Human nature is never more _en déshabille_ than in traveling; and
Gertrude's bump of mirthfulness found ample food in the length and
breadth of the well-filled breakfast-table. The jaded pleasure-seekers,
whose fashion-filmed eyes were blind to natural beauty, were talking of
"doing the Falls in one hour." The little new-made bride sat there with
love-swimming eyes, innocently expecting to escape detection in the
disguise of a plain brown traveling-dress: pretty little simpleton! and
casting such tell-tale glances at her new husband, too! The half-fledged
"freshman" was there, with his incipient beard and his first long-tailed
coat, making love and bad puns to a knot of his sister's mischief-loving
female friends.
In came the pompous city aristocrat, all dignity and shirt-collar,
following his abdomen and the waiter with measured steps and
supercilious glance, to the court-end of the table. There, too, was the
pale student, feasting his book-surfeited eyes on the pleasanter page of
young beauty's April face. There, too, the unsophisticated country girl,
too anxious to please, exhausting all her toilet's finery on the
breakfast-table. There, too, the poor dyspeptic, surveying with longing
eye the tabooed dainties, for which he must pay to Dame Nature if he
ate, and to the landlord whether or no.
"Your spirits are at high-water mark this morning," said John to his
sister, as Gertrude's quick eye took these notes of her neighbors. "I
think you have made up your mind not to grow old. You look as handsome
as a picture, this morning."
"As an artist, allow me to tell you that your compliment is a doubtful
one," said Gertrude. "And as to old age, which is such a bugbear to most
of my sex, I assure you it has no terrors for me. My first gray hair
will excite in me no regretful emotions."
"Ah! you can well afford to be philosophic now," retorted John, touching
the shining curls around his sister's face.
"You don't believe me? I assure you that the only terror old age has for
me is its helplessness and imbecility. My natural independence revolts
at being a burden even to those whom I love;" and Gertrude's tone had a
touch of sadness in it. "You remember old Aunt Hepsy, John? how long her
body outlived her mind; how at eighty years she would beg for tin
carts, and soldiers, and rag dolls, and amuse herself by the hour with
them, like a little child. This, I confess, is humiliating. In this view
I can truly say I dread old age. But the mere thinning of the luxuriant
locks, the filming of the bright eye, the shrinking of the rounded
limbs, these things give me no heart-pangs in the anticipation. I can
not understand the sensitiveness with which most men and women, past the
season of youth, hear their age alluded to. It certainly can be no
secret, for if Time deal gently with them the family register will not;
and if the finger of vanity obliterate all traces of the latter, some
toothless old crone yet hobbles, who, forgetful of every thing else, yet
remembers the year, week, day, minute, and second in which (without your
leave) you were introduced to life's cares and troubles.
"Beside, old age _need_ not be repulsive or unlovely," said Gertrude;
"look at that aged couple, yonder! How beautiful those silver hairs, how
genuine and heart-warming the smile with which they regard each other!
To my eye, there is beauty on those furrowed temples, beauty in those
wrinkled hands, so kindly outstretched to meet each other's wants.
Life's joys and sorrows have evidently knit _their_ hearts but more
firmly together. What is the mad love of youthful blood to the sun-set
effulgence of their setting lives? God bless them!" said Gertrude, as,
kindly leaning one on the other, they passed out the hall. "Old age
_may_ be beautiful!"
"Yes," replied John, "when the heart is kept fresh and green; that which
neutralizes the counsels of old age is the ascetic severity with which
it too often denounces innocent pleasure, forgetting that the blood
which now flows so sluggishly in its veins had once the torrent's mad
leap. But look, Gertrude, while I discuss this ham omelette, and see
what is in the morning papers."
"Well--in the first place, 'dreadful casualty.' What _would_ editors do,
I wonder, without these dreadful casualties? I sometimes amuse myself,
when I have nothing better to do, in comparing their relative tastes for
the horrible, and their skill in dishing it up spicily to the appetites
of their various readers. The ingenuity they manifest in this line is
quite incredible.
"Observe now, the flippant heartlessness with which these city items,
are got up, as if a poor degraded drunkard were the less an object of
pity that he had parted with the priceless power of self-resistance! A
man who could make a jest of a sight so sad, has sunk lower even than
the poor wretch he burlesques.
"Well--let me see--then here are stupid letters from watering-places,
got up as pay for the writer's board, at the fashionable hotel, from
which they are written and which the transparent writer puffs at every
few lines. Then here are some ingenious letters which the editor has
written to himself, thanking himself for 'some judicious and sensible
editorials which have lately appeared in his columns, and for the
general tone of independence and honesty which pervades his admirable
paper.' O, dear!" said Gertrude, laughing, "what a thing it is, to be
sure, to get a peep behind the scenes!
"Then here is an advertisement headed, 'Women out of employment.' I
wonder none of these women have ever thought of going out to do a
family's mending by the day or week. I have often thought that a
_skillful_ hand would meet a hearty welcome, and a ready remuneration,
from many an over-tasked mother of a family, who sighs over the ravages
of the weekly wash, and whose annual baby comes ever between her and the
bottom of the stereotyped I 'stocking-basket.'
"But a truce to newspapers, with such a bright sun wooing us out of
doors; now for Goat Island; but first let me prepare you for a depletion
of your pocket-book in the shape of admiration-fees. You will be
twitched by the elbow, plucked by the skirt, solicited with a courtesy
or a bow; 'moccasins' to buy from sham squaws--'stuffed beasts' to see
by the roadside--'views of Niagara,' done in water-colors, 'for sale,'
at rude shanties. Then there will be boys popping from behind trees with
'ornaments made of Table Rock;' disinterested gentlemen desirous to
'take you under the sheet' in a costume that would frighten the
mermaids; disinterested owners of spy-glasses 'anxious you should get
the best view.' I tell you," said Gertrude, "for a damper the spray is
nothing to it! You must be content to cork up your enthusiasm till these
'horse-leech' gentry are appeased.
"Do you know, John, that my '76 blood was quite up to boiling-point the
first time I came here, when the toll-keeper on the Canada side demanded
what was my business, and how long I intended to stay over there?"
"I can fancy it," said John, laughing; "did you answer him?"
"Not I," said Gertrude, "until I had ascertained that the same
catechetical rule held good on the American side. Nevertheless, I would
be willing to wager that I could smuggle any thing I pleased into Her
Majesty's dominions under the toll-keeper's very nose, had I a mind to
try it.
"I wonder," continued Gertrude, after a pause, "could one ever _get
used_ to Niagara? Could its roar be one's cradle lullaby and the spirit
not plume itself for lofty flights? Could one look at it when laughing
to scorn stern winter's fetters, as did Sampson the impotent green
withes of the Philistines, dashing on in its might, though all Nature
beside lay wrapped in old winter's winding-sheet? see it accepting, like
some old despot, the tribute of silver moon-beams, golden sun-rays, and
a rainbow arch of triumph for its hoary head to pass under;--ever
absolute--unconquerable--omnipotent--eternal--as God himself! Could
this be the first leaf turned over in Nature's book to the infant's eye,
and _not_ make it unshrinking as the eagle's?
"Hark! what is that?" exclaimed Gertrude, starting to her feet, and
bounding forward with the fleetness of a deer.
Oh, that shriek!
High it rose above Niagara's wildest roar, as the foaming waters
engulfed its victim! In the transit of a moment, they who for fourscore
years and ten, through storm and sunshine, had walked side by side
together, were parted, and forever! With the half-uttered word on his
lip--with the love-beam in his eye--he "was not!"
"God comfort her," sobbed Gertrude, as the aged and widowed survivor was
carried back insensible to the hotel. "How little we thought this
morning, when looking at their happy and united old age, that Death
would so unexpectedly step between; and still Niagara's relentless
waters plunge down the abyss, shroud and sepulcher to the loved and
lifeless form beneath?"
Serene as the sky when the thunder-cloud has rolled away, calm as the
ocean when the moon has lulled its crested waves to sleep, smiling as
earth when from off its heaving bosom the waters of the flood were
rolled, leaning on Him who is the "widow's God and Husband," the aged
mourner whispered, "It is well."
"God has been so good to me," she said to Gertrude. "He has lifted the
cloud even at the tomb's portal. Listen, my child, and learn to trust in
Him who is the believer's Rock of Ages.
"The first years of my wedded life were all brightness. We were not
rich, but Love sweetens labor, and so that we were only spared to each
other (my husband and I), for us there could be no sorrow. Children
blessed us, bright, active, and healthy, and, hugging my idols to my
heart, I forgot to look beyond. I saw the dead borne past my door, but
the sunshine still lay over my own threshhold. I saw the drunkard reel
past, but _my_ mountain stood strong! As I rocked my baby's cradle, my
heart sang to its sweet smile--earth only seemed near, eternity a great
way off. To-day I knew was bliss--the future, what was it? A riddle
which puzzled the wisest; and I was not wise, only happy. Alas, the worm
was creeping silently on toward the root of my gourd. It was 'the worm
of the still.' One by one its leaves fell off. Silently but relentlessly
he did his blighting work. Where plenty ruled, poverty came--clouds in
place of sunshine--sobs for smiles--curses for kisses--tears for
laughter.
"Bitter tears fell when they rolled by me in their carriages, whose
wealth was coined from my heart's blood; but I did not chide _him_; I
toiled and sorrowed on, for still I loved. I know not where the strength
came to labor, still I found my babes and him bread; but, as week after
week rolled by, and the reeling form still staggered past me, my heart
grew faint and sick; for the hand which had never been raised save to
bless us, now dealt the cruel blow; and the children who had been wont
to wait for his coming, and to climb his knee, now cowered when they
heard his unsteady footsteps. Each day I hoped against hope, for some
change for the better, but it came not.
"One day a thought occurred to me by which I might perchance keep the
demon at bay; I would watch the moment at which this craving thirst took
possession of my husband. I would give him a substitute in the shape of
strong hot chocolate, of which he was inordinately fond; I denied myself
every comfort to procure it. I prepared it exactly to his taste--it was
ready to the minute that the tempting fiend was wont to whisper in his
ear. I was first upon the ground; I forestalled the demon. The sated
appetite heeded not his Judas entreaties. My husband smiled on me again,
he called me his saviour, his preserver; he again entered the shop of
his employer; it was near the house, so it was easy for me to run over
with the tempting beverage; I watched him night and day; I anticipated
his every wish; my husband was again clothed, and in his right mind; we
both learned our dependence on a stronger arm than each other's. Riches
came with industry, our last days were our best days.
"And now, my dear child," and the old lady smiled through her tears,
"there is music to my ears, even in those rushing waters, for he who
sleeps beneath them fills no _drunkard's_ grave. What matters it by what
longer or shorter road we travel, so that heaven be gained at last?"